Examination arrangement

Course content

The course aims to give an understanding in how information can be designed and presented to provide efficient and effective knowledge transfer and decision-making.

The course provides an overview of the human sensory and cognitive systems, and focus on how different designs of information affect understanding. Screen based as well as other types of interactive interfaces as means to efficiently and unambiguously present information are discussed.

The course is structured based on the sensory and perceptive human systems like vision, memory, spatial ability and visual thinking. Base material is the course literature and current scientific papers in relevant areas.

Learning outcome

Knowledge and understanding:
- Show the difference between well-known information visualization techniques, including the pros and cons they have in respect to types of data, functionality, adaptability, and scalability
- Show how the cognitive and perceptive abilities of humans affect the possibilities of information visualization.

Skills and abilities:
- Create concepts for information visualizations taking into consideration specific data sets, users, technical platforms, and use context.
- Iteratively develop visualizations from early non-functional sketches through mock-ups to functional prototype making use of user feedback.

General knowledge:
- Compare different interactive visualization techniques to evaluate their feasibility for both generic and specific use
- Analyze and provide creative criticism on specific solutions to visualize information.

Learning methods and activities

The course contains a number of lectures, a literature seminar, three practical exercises, a project work and a written examination. The exercises and projects are done in groups.

Literature seminar:
One or more students will be responsible for one chapter of the course book each and orally present the most important features as well as suggest a number of questions for the written examination.

Practical exercises:
Three week-long exercises will be given which are to be solved in groups of 2-3 students. Results of the exercises will be discussed in class.

Project work:
One larger project work based on some current research question solving a practical visualisation design problem will be assigned to groups of 2-3 students. The results will be presented in a mini-thesis, a scientific poster, as well as an oral poster presentation.

Written examination:
The theoretical content of the course litearture and the lectures will be examined in a 3 hrs long written examination.
If there is a re-sit examination, the examination may be changed from written to oral.

Course materials

Course literature:
Ware, Colin (2004). “Information Visualization: Perception for Design. London: Elsevier Science & Technology. ISBN: 9781558608191.
Reference literature:
Christopher D. Wickens, Justin G. Hollands, Raja Parasuraman, & Simon Banbury. (2012). “Engineering Psychology & Human Performance (4th Edition)”. Pearsons. ISBN10: 0205945740, ISBN13: 9780205945740
Examples of relevant scientific papers:
O’Reagan, J. K. (1992). Solving the “real” mysteries of visual perception: The world as an outside memory. Canadian Journal of Psychology, 46: 461-488.
Porathe, T. & Strand, L. (2011). Which sign is more visible? Measuring the visibility of traffic signs through the conspicuity index method. European Transport Research Review, 3:35–45. DOI 10.1007/s12544-011-0050-9
Porathe, T. & Prison, J. (2008) Design of Human-Map System Interaction. Proceedings of the ACM SIGCHI 26th CHI Conference in Florence, Italy 5-10 April 2008. ACM New York, NY, USA. ISBN:978-1-60558-012-X .