First: Introductions

Goal: Start collecting data from your life so that you can visualize it!

Hand-Drawn Data Viz

Once we have collected data, a common next step is to visualize it.
Two key aspects of data visualization:
- Determining how you want to display the data.
- Figuring out how to tell the computer to do that mapping.
Hand-drawn data visualizations allow us to focus on the first part with full control over the creative process!

Hand-Drawn Data Viz Examples

Dear Data

“Each week, and for a year, we collected and measured a particular type of data about our lives, used this data to make a drawing on a postcard-sized sheet of paper, and then dropped the postcard in an English”postbox” (Stefanie) or an American “mailbox” (Giorgia)!“

Dear Data Examples

Dear Data Examples

More Dear Data Examples

Becky Cooper handed out hand-drawn maps of Manhattan to strangers and asked them to “map their Manhattan.”

Map drawn by New Yorker staff writer Patricia Marx

What would the data frame for this visualization look like?

More Dear Data Examples

What would the data frame for this visualization look like?

More Dear Data Examples

What would the data frame for this visualization look like?

Goal: Over the next few days, collect data from your life so that you can visualize it on Lab 1.

Recommendations

Store the data in your favorite spreadsheet program (Google Sheets, Numbers, Excel).
Determine what your cases/observations will be.
Collect data on more variables than you will likely visualize. It is hard to know beforehand what the interesting relationships will be.
Come to my office (Library 390) to borrow art supplies (colored pencils and felt-tip markers)!

Demo of accessing the RStudio Server
and intro to Quarto