Week 1: Assignment

Week 1: Presidential Data Visualization

Instructions

1. Download the attached file of data Download attached file of data on US Presidents.

2. Look at the data and think of a story that you can tell with the data. A really good story doesn't just show us a value in the data, but rather gets an idea across to us, using the data to demonstrate that idea. Ask "why would I care about this?"

3. Write down, in a single sentence, the story you are trying to get across.

4. Draw by hand a visualization that gets that story across. Don't use Excel or other software to do the drawing, although you could use it to calculate things like averages if you want to graph an average. Also don't make a graph in software and then trace it by hand. Draw the thing by hand! This will ideally be on a piece of paper, but if you, for example, really want color but don't have colored drawing tools, you can draw it on a computer using a freehand drawing tool like Microsoft Paint or draw.io (Links to an external site.). The data points don't need to be super-precisely placed, so don't worry about breaking out the ruler and T-square, but the visualization should reflect the actual data. Do pay attention to it looking nice, an do think about how you can follow our data communication best-practices.

5. Take a clear, well-lit picture of your drawing (or screenshot, if appropriate, or I guess scan it if you have a scanner!) and upload it, along with your single-sentence story from step 3, as well as a description of how your graph follows the principles we've learned in class.

Grading will be based on having a reasonably accurate story, clearly reflecting that story in the diagram (I should be able to get the story just from the diagram without looking at your explanation, although annotations on the graph itself are fine), and following the principles we've learned in class.

Things to Think About:

1. Center your assignment around the idea/story you want to get across. Then, once you've sketched your graph, ask "is this getting the idea across as clearly as possible? If someone didn't know what my idea/story was, would they figure it out by just looking at the graph?" If not, revise! Adding annotations can certainly help.
2. Keep basic statistical principles in mind. For example, if you're going to calculate the average of something by political party, how are you going to handle the political parties that only have one or two presidents in them? The average wouldn't be too informative for this, since the sample size is so small. Do you drop them? Handle them in some other way?

Assignment Details

Please discuss these on the discussion board, but each person should work on the assignment and turn in a copy (they can be the same or slightly different). The main thing is that you work together and begin your journey learning about data communication.

What you submit: A screenshot or picture of your drawn graph, along with your story in a sentence.