The Explanatory Visualization Framework: an active learning framework for teaching creative computing using explanatory visualizations

Visualizations are nowadays appearing in popular media and are used everyday in the workplace. This democratisation of visualization challenges educators to develop effective learning strategies, in order to train the next generation of creative visualization specialists. There is high demand for skilled individuals who can analyse a problem, consider alternative designs, develop new visualizations, and be creative and innovative. Our three-stage framework, leads the learner through a series of tasks, each designed to develop different skills necessary for coming up with creative, innovative, effective, and purposeful visualizations. For that, we get the learners to create an explanatory visualization of an algorithm of their choice. By making an algorithm choice, and by following an active-learning and project-based strategy, the learners take ownership of a particular visualization challenge. They become enthusiastic to develop good results and learn different creative skills on their learning journey

Experience and guidance for the use of sketching and low-fidelity visualisation-design in teaching

We, like other educators, are keen to develop the next generation of visualization designers. The use of sketching and low-fidelity designs are becoming popular methods to help developers and students consider many alternative ideas and plan what they should build. But especially within an education setting, there are often many challenges to persuade students that they should sketch and consider low-fidelity prototypes. Students can be unwilling to contemplate alternatives, reluctant to use pens and paper, or sketch on paper, and inclined to code the first idea in their mind. In this paper we discuss these issues, and investigate strategies to help increase the breadth of low-fidelity designs, especially for developing data-visualization tools. We draw together experiences and advice of how we have used the Five Design-Sheets method over eight years, for different assessment styles and across two institutions. We follow our experiences with an equal measure of advice. This paper would be useful for anyone who wishes to use sketching in their teaching, or to improve their own experiences

Sketching Designs Using the Five Design-Sheet Methodology

Accepted for Publication in January 2016, now available as pre-print in IEEE XploreSketching designs has been shown to be a useful way of planning and considering alternative solutions. The use of lo-fidelity prototyping, especially paper-based sketching, can save time, money and converge to better solutions more quickly. However, this design process is often viewed to be too informal. Consequently users do not know how to manage their thoughts and ideas (to first think divergently, to then finally converge on a suitable solution). We present the Five Design Sheet (FdS) methodology. The methodology enables users to create information visualization interfaces through lo-fidelity methods. Users sketch and plan their ideas, helping them express different possibilities, think through these ideas to consider their potential effectiveness as solutions to the task (sheet 1); they create three principle designs (sheets 2,3 and 4); before converging on a final realization design that can then be implemented (sheet 5). In this article, we present (i) a review of the use of sketching as a planning method for visualization and the benefits of sketching, (ii) a detailed description of the Five Design Sheet (FdS) methodology, and (iii) an evaluation of the FdS using the System Usability Scale, along with a case-study of its use in industry and experience of its use in teaching

ReVisIt: Enabling Passive Evaluation of Interactive Visualizations

Visualizations on the web are used to communicate information to a wide range of audiences. However, there exists no widely accepted method for visualization creators to understand how an audience engages with their work. To address this, we propose using passive evaluation, where user interaction with visualizations is logged, and later explored by the creator. ReVisIt is a tool that captures user interactions with a visualization, processes them, and displays them in a dashboard. To evaluate ReVisIt, we conducted several interviews with visualization creators. We concluded that a tool like ReVisIt would be valuable to creators, and there are several opportunities for future work in this area

Creating explanatory visualizations of algorithms for active learning

Visualizations have been used to explain algorithms to learners, in order to help them understand complex processes. These ‘explanatory visualizations’ can help learners understand computer algorithms and data-structures. But most are created by an educator and merely watched by the learner. In this paper, we explain how we get learners to plan and develop their own explanatory visualizations of algorithms. By actively developing their own visualizations learners gain a deeper insight of the algorithms that they are explaining. These depictions can also help other learners understand the algorithm

One view is not enough: review of and encouragement for multiple and alternative representations in 3D and immersive visualisation

The opportunities for 3D visualisations are huge. People can be immersed inside their data, interface with it in natural ways, and see it in ways that are not possible on a traditional desktop screen. Indeed, 3D visualisations, especially those that are immersed inside head-mounted displays are becoming popular. Much of this growth is driven by the availability, popularity and falling cost of head-mounted displays and other immersive technologies. However, there are also challenges. For example, data visualisation objects can be obscured, important facets missed (perhaps behind the viewer), and the interfaces may be unfamiliar. Some of these challenges are not unique to 3D immersive technologies. Indeed, developers of traditional 2D exploratory visualisation tools would use alternative views, across a multiple coordinated view (MCV) system. Coordinated view interfaces help users explore the richness of the data. For instance, an alphabetical list of people in one view shows everyone in the database, while a map view depicts where they live. Each view provides a different task or purpose. While it is possible to translate some desktop interface techniques into the 3D immersive world, it is not always clear what equivalences would be. In this paper, using several case studies, we discuss the challenges and opportunities for using multiple views in immersive visualisation. Our aim is to provide a set of concepts that will enable developers to perform critical thinking, creative thinking and push the boundaries of what is possible with 3D and immersive visualisation. In summary developers should consider how to integrate many views, techniques and presentation styles, and one view is not enough when using 3D and immersive visualisations

Interaction Design to Enhance UX of University Timetable Plotting System on Mobile Version

Goal of this research is to introduce how the implementation of Interaction Design can solve problem of UI/UX in mobile devices. The method used here is Interaction Design, the study of designing interactive digital products with user-centered approach to deliver engaging and better user experiences (UX). One of interesting interactive product is University Timetable Plotting System, an application used to manage course scheduling that produces busy screen with large timetable. Problems occurred because this system have inadequate support for user with relatively low resolution (like smartphone) compared to desktop thus affect negative UX. Interaction design workflow begins with collecting data to establishing requirement, following with designing alternatives. Based on usability evaluation, Instruction approach proved to produce high satisfaction rating rather than direct manipulation approach. This research proved that Interaction Design could be utilize on the process of creating Interactive Products. In conclusion its challenging to convert plotting UI into mobile version and this paper demonstrate that Interaction design successfully guides developer and UI designer to design better UI/UX experiences