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November 3 - Kickoff
November 11 - Discovery Due
November 17 - Proofs of Concept Due
November 24 - WIP Crit, Work Day (Thanksgiving Week)
December 1 - Work Day
December 8 - Final Crit
December 15 - Documentation Due (No Class)

In the last assignment, you use computer programming to make the production of your poster more accurate and less tedius. In this assignment you will explore a different benefit of code-driven design.

Interactivity: As our ability to collect data increases, we need more powerful tools to process and view it. User interaction can be used in many ways to make visualizations into tools for exploration. Your visualization may disclose detailed information when the user clicks. You may provide a filter or search tool to narrow down and highlight a subset of information. Maybe you allow users to choose what aspects of information to display, or how to sort entities.

Realtime: Many collections of data are constantly changing. Stock quotes, sports stats, populations, and trends on Twitter all change throughout the day. Displaying these kinds of data requires a different approach. Instead of building a visualization, you must build a system to generate visualizations with the latest data. When you design, you need to think about not only what the data is, but also what the data may be.

Choosing a Data Set

Your choice of content is up to you. If you are making an interactive tool, look for a data set that has enough complexity that a single point of view wouldn’t tell the whole story. If you decide to create a realtime visualization, your main concerns are that the data should change with time and that you can find a reliable source that provides up-to-date data in a form you can use.

Format Constraints

This project will most likely take the form of a processing application or a website. If you have another format in mind, email me a compelling case before Friday morning to have it approved.

Discovery

Your discovery and proposal are due next week. Use the guidelines from the last assignment in crafting your proposal. Like the last assignment, you have a wide degree of freedom in planning a project that fits with your existing skills and education goals. Like the first week of the last assignment, this first week will is critical. Find a project you want to do and that will challenge you. Make sure that the data and tools you will need are available. Develop a clear goal and a complete plan.