CDS 6324

DATA VISUALIZATION

Course Information
Instructors

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Wong Lai Kuan

Office: BR1018
Email: [email protected]
Web: https://mmuexpert.mmu.edu.my/lkwong

Dr. Noramiza Hashim

Office: BR2007
Email: [email protected]
Web: : https://mmuexpert.mmu.edu.my/noramizahashim
Text Book / References

○ Text Book
■ Wilke, C. O. (2019). Fundamentals of data visualization: a primer on making
informative and compelling figures. O'Reilly Media.
https://clauswilke.com/dataviz/

○ Reference Books
■ M. Tufte, E. (2001). The Visual Display of Quantitative Information (2nd Edition).
Graphics Press. https://www.edwardtufte.com/
■ Knaflic, C. N. (2015). Storytelling with data: A data visualization guide for business
professionals. John Wiley & Sons. http://www.storytellingwithdata.com/
Course Assessments

Class
Lab Exercises, Quizzes 10% TBD
participation

Test Mid-term test 20% Week 11

Design and create visualizations using

Week 5
Assignment industry-standard visualization tools - 30%
Week 8
Tableau

Design and implement an interactive web-

Project based visualization of large dataset using 40% Week 13
D3 / Javascript programming language
TDS 3401
DATA VISUALIZATION

Lecture 1: Introduction
How much data is created
EVERY DAY?
Social Media

https://stamen.com/work/facebook-flowers/
Famous Failures
IoT Sensors
https://www.statista.com/statistics/871513/worldwide-data-created/
What information consumes is rather obvious:
it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a
wealth of information creates a poverty of attention,
and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among
the overabundance of information sources that might
consume it.

~Herbert Simon
as quoted by Hal Varian
Scientific American
September 1995
HOW might we use VISUALIZATION to
EMPOWER understanding of data and analysis
processes?
What is VISUALIZATION?
B. McCormick, T. DeFanti, and M. Brown, 1987

Visualization is a method of computing. It

transforms the symbolic into the geometric,
enabling researchers to observe their simulations
and computations. Visualization offers a method for
seeing the unseen. It enriches the process of
scientific discovery and fosters profound and
unexpected insights. In many fields it is already
revolutionizing the way scientists do science.

McCormick, B.H., T.A. DeFanti, M.D. Brown, Visualization in Scientific

Computing, Computer Graphics 21(6), November 1987
 Stuart Card, 2007

The purpose of information visualization is to amplify

cognitive performance, not just to create
interesting pictures. Information visualizations should
do for the mind what automobiles do for the feet.

Stuart Card, Information visualization, in A. Sears and J.A. Jacko (eds.)

The Human-Computer Interaction Handbook, 2007
 Modern definition, 2018-2022

Data visualization is the practice of translating

information into a visual context, such as a map
or graph, to make data easier for the human brain
to understand and pull insights from. The main
goal of data visualization is to make it easier to
identify patterns, trends and outliers in large
data sets.

[Origin unknown]
What should be achieved?

✓ show the data

✓ induce viewer to think about substance rather than methodology, graphical
design or other aspects
✓ encourage eye to compare different pieces of data
✓ avoid distorting what the data represents
✓ present many numbers in a small space
✓ make large data sets coherent
✓ reveal data at several levels of detail
✓ serve a reasonably clear purpose

The visual display of quantitative information

Edward R Tufte, 2001, 2nd ed.
Effectiveness of Data Visualization
● What useful information can you obtained from the statistical data below?

Summary Statistics
uX = 9.0 σX = 3.317
uY = 7.5 σY = 2.03

Linear Regression
Y = 3 + 0.5X
R2 = 0.67

[Anscombe 1973]
Effectiveness of Data Visualization
Graphics can reveal
data in a way that
tabulation and the
calculation of standard
statistics may not.

Give a brief but precise

verbal description of what
is shown (what sort of
relationship between x and
y) in each of the four
Anscombe plots.

[Anscombe 1973]
Why Create Visualizations?
● Record information
○ Blueprints, photographs, seismographs, record historical data, ...

● Analyze data to support reasoning (exploratory visualization)

○ Develop and assess hypotheses
○ Find patterns / Discover errors in data
○ Expand memory

● Communicate information to others (explanatory visualization)

○ Share and persuade
○ Collaborate and revise
○ Emphasize important aspects of data
Why Create Visualizations?
● Record information
○ Blueprints, photographs, seismographs, …

● Analyze data to support reasoning (exploratory visualization)

○ Develop and assess hypotheses
○ Find patterns / Discover errors in data
○ Expand memory

● Communicate information to others (explanatory visualization)

○ Share and persuade
○ Collaborate and revise
○ Emphasize important aspects of data
Record Information

● Answer question

Gallop, Bay Horse “Daisy” [Muybridge 1884-86]

Record Information

● Drawing: Phases
of the moon

Galileo’s drawings of the phases of the moon from 1616

http://galileo.rice.edu/sci/observations/moon.html
Record Information

● Recording
Instruments

Marey’s sphygmograph [from Braun 83]

Record Information
● Recording
historical
data

You Draw It: How Family Income Predicts Children’s College Chances
[New York Times, May 28, 2015]
Record Information
● Recording
historical
data

You Draw It: How Family Income Predicts Children’s College Chances
[New York Times, May 28, 2015]
Why Create Visualizations?
● Record information
○ Blueprints, photographs, seismographs, …

● Analyze data to support reasoning (exploratory visualization)

○ Develop and assess hypotheses
○ Find patterns / Discover errors in data
○ Expand memory

● Communicate information to others (explanatory visualization)

○ Share and persuade
○ Collaborate and revise
○ Emphasize important aspects of data
Launching of the
Challenger @ Jan 1986
Why did the Challenger
Explode?
Support Reasoning
Make a Decision:
Challenger

2 of 13 pages of material faxed to NASA by Morton Thiokol [from Tufte 1997]

Support Reasoning
Make a Decision:
Challenger
Support Reasoning But wait! What is an appropriate “damage index”?
Which temperatures, O-ring or outside air?

Visualizations drawn by Tufte show how low temperatures damage O-rings [Tufte 97]
https://www.asktog.com/books/challengerExerpt.html
Support Reasoning
Make a Decision:
Challenger

Tufte’s close analysis demonstrates that the engineers had the information they needed — that O-ring
failure rates rose as temperature declined—but didn’t display it clearly. Seven astronauts’ lives could
have been saved with a simple graph of previous O-ring damage level against temperature.

Visualizations drawn by Tufte show how low temperatures damage O-rings [Tufte 97]
https://www.asktog.com/books/challengerExerpt.html
Support Reasoning
● Data in Context:
Cholera Outbreak In
1854

● In 1854, John Snow

plotted the position of
each cholera case on
a map.

[Tufte 97]
Support Reasoning
● Used map to hypothesize
that pump on Broad St.
was the cause.

[Tufte 97]
Find Patterns
NYC Weather

[New York Times 1981]

The Most Powerful Brain?
The Most Powerful Brain?
The Most Powerful Brain?
Expand Memory
Class Exercise

34
x 72
Expand Memory
Class Exercise

34
x 72
-------
68
2380
-------
2448
Why Create Visualizations?
● Record information
○ Blueprints, photographs, seismographs, …

● Analyze data to support reasoning (exploratory visualization)

○ Develop and assess hypotheses
○ Find patterns / Discover errors in data
○ Expand memory

● Communicate information to others (explanatory visualization)

○ Share and persuade
○ Collaborate and revise
○ Emphasize important aspects of data
Share and persuade

1856 Coxcomb of Crimean War Deaths, Florence Nightingale

Share and persuade

Insights:

● most of the fatalities during

the war were from
sickness caused by
deficient sanitary
measures

● improvements in hygiene
dramatically reduced the
death rate
 Communicate, Inform, Inspire

Bones in hand [from 1918 edition] Double helix model [Watson and Crick 53]
Communicate, Inform, Inspire

Coronavirus Tracked - John Burn-Murdoch & Financial Times https://ft.com/covid19

Communicate, Inform, Inspire

The Covid Economy

Washington Post
United States
Communicate, Inform, Inspire

The Covid Economy

OECD
South East Asia
Why Create Visualizations?
● Record information
○ Blueprints, photographs, seismographs, record historical data, ...

● Analyze data to support reasoning (exploratory visualization)

○ Develop and assess hypotheses
○ Find patterns / Discover errors in data
○ Expand memory

● Communicate information to others (explanatory visualization)

○ Share and persuade
○ Collaborate and revise
○ Emphasize important aspects of data
 The Value of Visualization
V=T+I+E+C [John Stasko]

● T = The ability to minimize total TIME needed to answer a wide variety of

questions (without formal queries, ie not needing to know SQL). It’s a fallacy that
all visualizations should be understandable in an instant. Some are inherently
complex. The trick is to do the task as quickly as possible.
● I = The ability to spur and discover INSIGHTS or insightful questions about the
data. If you don’t learn anything from your visualization, you have not succeeded.
 The Value of Visualization
V=T+I+E+C [John Stasko]

● E = Ability to convey overall ESSENCE or take-

away sense of the data. The bigger picture is
important. It’s great to see details but you must be
able to see the whole.
● C = Ability to generate CONFIDENCE and trust
about your data its domain and context. If you are
not the author, you need to be able to convey
your information in such a way that the audience
trusts your work.
Visualization Research
Challenge
• More and more unseen data
▪ Faster creation and collection
▪ Faster dissemination

Photo sharing/annotation Wikipedia Map of the Internet

Top Visualization Research Labs:

• UW Interactive Research Lab: https://idl.cs.washington.edu/
The ability to take data—to be able to understand it,
to process it, to extract value from it, to visualize
it, to communicate it — that’s going to be a hugely
important skill in the next decades, … because
now we really do have essentially free and ubiquitous
data. So the complimentary scarce factor is the ability
to understand that data and extract value from it.

Hal Varian
Google’s Chief Economist
The McKinsey Quarterly
Jan 2009
Goals of Visualization Research

• 1. Understand how visualizations convey information

▪ What do people perceive / comprehend?
▪ How do visualizations inform mental models?

• 2. Develop principles and techniques for creating effective

visualizations and supporting analysis
▪ Leverage perception & augment cognition
▪ Improve ties between visualization & mental model
TDS 3401
DATA VISUALIZATION

Course Topics
Data and Image
Models

[Bertin, Graphics and Graphic Information Processing 1981]

Visualization Design

Problematic design Redesign

Visualization Tools

Power BI

https://www.xenonstack.com/blog/top-data-visualization-tools
Multidimensional Data Visualization

Exploratory Data Analysis of Adverse Birth outcomes and exposure to oxides of nitrogen
Using interactive parallel coordinates plot technique. Scientific reports, 2020
Graphical Perception

Don’t Believe Your Eyes: How Visual Illusions Work

Interaction

https://www.covidvisualizer.com/
Animation

https://www.dundas.com/resources/blogs/benefits-of-bi/enhance-your-data-storytelling-with-animated-charts
Geospatial Data Visualization

http://www.flintexpats.com/2010/05/interview-with-frank-popper-about.html
Tree Visualization

vialab | Dr Christopher Williams

Graph Visualization

Record of Human Activity on Facebook [Zheporia Digital Marketing]

Text Visualization

Degree-Of-Interest Trees [Heer & Card 04]

 References

● M Tufte, E. (2001). The Visual Display of Quantitative Information

(2nd Edition). Graphics Press.
https://www.edwardtufte.com/

● Data Visualization Course (2022), University of Washington

https://courses.cs.washington.edu/courses/cse442