Design and Data
How can information designers contribute to the exploration of complex phenomena through data representation? The course aims at integrating tools for data analysis and representation in the design process, by building an interactive web-based data visualisation platform.
Course Teachers: Cerioli Nicola <nicola.g.cerioli@aalto.fi>
Responsible/Supervising Teacher: Rupesh Vyas <rupesh.vyas@aalto.fi>
Course Structure:
The structure of the course is hybrid: including tutorials, theoretical lectures, personal work, and open discussion. At the end of the course, the students are required to deliver an interactive visualization; additionally, Exercises are proposed weekly.
Learning outcomes:
The students will be provided with a set of methods and tools and will have a hands-on introduction on how to integrate them into the design process. More precisely, the covered areas will be:
• quick data visualisation tools
• data scraping tools
• SVG manipulation
• visual languages to represent complex phenomena
• building web-based interactive data visualisations in d3.js
After the course, the students will be able to build interactive data visualizations and be independent in expanding their programming knowledge.
A critical view on:
• quantitative research in the context of data representation
• the challenge of complexity
Before you start the course
Basic knowledge of HTML and CSS is required, otherwise, make sure to follow this tutorial before the beginning of the course
Basic knowledge of google sheets or other data wrangling tools.
Please, have the following software installed on your computer:an SVG editor (like Adobe Illustrator or any equivalent)
Have a google account in order to comfortably use google spreadsheets or have Microsoft excel
Course Schedule:
Week 1
Day 01: 13-01-2021:
09:15-12:00 – Introduction to the course
Day 02: 14-01-2021
09:15-12:00 – Scalable Vector Graphics
13:00-17:00 – Javascript session 1
Week 2
Day 03: 20-01-2022
09:15-12:00 – Javascript session 2
Day 04: 21-01-2022
09:15-12:00 – d3.js session 1, what is d3
13:00-17:00 – d3.js session 2, data visualization in d3
Week 3
Day 05: 27-01-2022
09:15-12:00 – Data scraping tools
Day 06: 28-01-2022
09:15-12:00 – d3.js session 3, interactive data visualization
13:00-17:00 – d3.js session 4, filtering
Week 4
Day 07: 03-02-2022
09:15-12:00 – d3.js session 5, nesting
Day 08: 04-02-2022
09:15-12:00 – d3.js session 6, trees
13:00-17:00 – network visualization
Week 5
Day 09: 10-02-2022
09:15-12:00 – d3.js practice
Day 10: 11-02-2022
09:15-12:00 – d3.js practice
13:00-17:00 – d3.js practice
Week 6
Day 09: 17-02-2022
09:15-12:00 – d3.js practice
Day 10: 18-02-2022
09:15-12:00 – d3.js practice
13:00-17:00 – Final Presentation
Upload a folder containing:
A – The final project folder
In case you're not the only author, attach a text file specifying your contribution
Make sure the folder contains everything (data, scripts, styles, fonts) in order for the website to run.
(Note: even if your website is online, you will need to upload the website folder; a link is not enough)B – The sketches
All the digital sketches you produced during the process.C – All the exercises
find the list here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JhCGsDHPdG8_kYZ01-QwIy0wTegWEHoc__zOTZXfB7U/edit?usp=sharing