DE 303 | Information Graphics and Visualization

DE 303 B.DES 2020

Information Graphics
and Visualization

Venkatesh Rajamanickam
IDC, IIT Bombay

Information graphics reveal the hidden, explain the complex and illuminate the obscure. Constructing visual representation of information is not mere translation of what can be read to what can be seen. It entails filtering the information, establishing relationships, discerning patterns and representing them in a manner that enables a consumer of that information construct meaningful knowledge.

Course Structure

The course comprised of three major assignments - replication of an already established data visualization, redesigning that into something better, and finally porting the same data and visualizing it through a different medium.

As part of the course, we had been given an assignment to select an existing DataViz, and faithfully recreate it, as close as possible to the original. The underlying philosophy being that even recreating an existing visualization, down to its smallest details, will teach one a lot about how the data has been encoded, and how effective the method of encoding is etc. It was a really good learning experience

We from the batch of 2016 IDC did a series of data visualization projects under prof. Venkatesh. Firstly we choose a visualization we liked and replicated it, followed by redesign and re purpose. Given we had replicated the visualization, we had enough understanding of the data and we redesigned the visualizations in the same medium which the original visualization was in. Here is a compilation of all the redesigns made by us.

Data Visualisations- Repurposed - This visualisation is made using the data collected describing foreign fighters joining ISIS from all over the world. The visualisation displays related factors which play a role in Islamic people over the world making a decision to leave their countries and join the ISIS cause.experience