Teaching and Learning Data Visualization: Ideas and Assignments

This article discusses how to make statistical graphics a more prominent element of the undergraduate statistics curricula. The focus is on several different types of assignments that exemplify how to incorporate graphics into a course in a pedagogically meaningful way. These assignments include having students deconstruct and reconstruct plots, copy masterful graphs, create one-minute visual revelations, convert tables into `pictures', and develop interactive visualizations with, e.g., the virtual earth as a plotting canvas. In addition to describing the goals and details of each assignment, we also discuss the broader topic of graphics and key concepts that we think warrant inclusion in the statistics curricula. We advocate that more attention needs to be paid to this fundamental field of statistics at all levels, from introductory undergraduate through graduate level courses. With the rapid rise of tools to visualize data, e.g., Google trends, GapMinder, ManyEyes, and Tableau, and the increased use of graphics in the media, understanding the principles of good statistical graphics, and having the ability to create informative visualizations is an ever more important aspect of statistics education

Analysing the Role of Interactivity in User Experience

An experimental investigation into the role of interaction in user experience (UX) with a controlled manipulation of interactivity features (e.g. avatars, interactive video) in a university information website is reported. The more interactive version had better affect and hedonic ratings, even though its perceived usability was worse. Analysis of qualitative data showed users were attracted to the interactive features, although they complained about poor usability. The results of the experiments are discussed to consider the role of interactivity in user experience and the differences between users’ quantitative judgements of UX and their comments on interactive features which reveal different perspectives

Economic resilience : including a case study of the global transition network

This paper explores the dynamic properties of organisms and ecosystems that make them so resilient and capable of adapting to changing circumstances, allowing them to maintain an overall condition of coherence, wholeness and health while living in balance within the resources of the planet. Key principles of resilient ecological systems are explored including: self-regulation; positive and negative feedback; diversity; scale and context; cooperation; emergence and novelty; and ecological tipping points. In contrast, market based economic systems can produce unstable growth with unintended destruction of cultural and species diversity and homogenisation of global life-styles. The paper re-examines fundamental economic principles using insights from biological evolution and ecosystem dynamics to establish a foundation for more resilient economies. This involves experimenting with different models in different communities to find patterns of sustainable production and exchange appropriate to local regions. Fundamental steps in this direction include the emergence of self-organising local communities based on creative experimentation, re-localisation of core sectors of the economy (food, energy, health and education), evolution of local currencies and banking practices that support local enterprise and investment in green technologies, stimulation of decentralised renewable energy networks and economic reform aligned with ecological principles. The Transition Network provides a case study of an international community based movement that has been experimenting with putting some of these principles into practice at the local level. The aim of the Transition Network is to support community led responses to peak oil and climate change, building resilience and well-being. The concept of ecological resilience and its application to local economy is hard wired into the values and emerging structure of the network of transition communities across the globe. The movement started in the UK in 2005 and there are now over 1000 Transition initiatives spanning 34 countries across the world. Many attribute the success and phenomenal growth of the Transition Network to its emerging holographic structure that mimics cell growth within living organisms. Growing a more resilient food system in the face of the twin challenges of natural resource scarcity and climate change is central to the Transition movement. A set of principles for a post carbon resilient food economy in the UK are offered. These include an 80% cut in carbon emission in the food sector by 2050, agricultural diversification, prioritization of farming methods that establish and enhance carbon sinks, phasing out of dependence on fossil fuels in food growing, processing and distribution, promoting access to nutritious and affordable food, as well as promoting greater access to land for growing food in urban and peri-urban areas. Practical examples of Transition related projects in the food sector are presented across the following themes: access to land, low carbon production methods, food distribution systems, health and community gardens and orchards, and collaborative ownership models

Rethinking Map Legends with Visualization

This design paper presents new guidance for creating map legends in a dynamic environment. Our contribution is a set of guidelines for legend design in a visualization context and a series of illustrative themes through which they may be expressed. These are demonstrated in an applications context through interactive software prototypes. The guidelines are derived from cartographic literature and in liaison with EDINA who provide digital mapping services for UK tertiary education. They enhance approaches to legend design that have evolved for static media with visualization by considering: selection, layout, symbols, position, dynamism and design and process. Broad visualization legend themes include: The Ground Truth Legend, The Legend as Statistical Graphic and The Map is the Legend. Together, these concepts enable us to augment legends with dynamic properties that address specific needs, rethink their nature and role and contribute to a wider re-evaluation of maps as artifacts of usage rather than statements of fact. EDINA has acquired funding to enhance their clients with visualization legends that use these concepts as a consequence of this work. The guidance applies to the design of a wide range of legends and keys used in cartography and information visualization

Seeing sustainable futures: the potential of design education

The process of sustainable development requires us all to think differently about what we do, how we do it and why we do what we do. Questioning activities in the context of sustainability can often result in difficult and perhaps uncomfortable conclusions about our current development paradigm – one that gives primacy to economic growth and wealth creation over welfare and well-being. The practice of design operates within this development paradigm and is complicit in the unsustainable activities of the business domain. Designers support the economic system through the conceptualisation and production of goods: goods multiplying in variety and number, responding to escalating global demand. Unfortunately most current business operates for economic profit alone, ignorant of key sustainable ecological and social parameters. For example material throughput is linear rather than cyclic in nature; social inequities exist in relation to trade and well-being; and natural resources are considered convenient dumps for pollutants and toxins. Designers, among many others, are thus implicated in the augmentation of unsustainable outcomes rather than the reduction of them. This paper aims to explore how this situation can be reversed to enable design to play a positive and supporting role towards the goals of sustainable development. Challenging the current paradigm of development will need people who have the ability to think creatively and laterally and draw on disparate areas of knowledge to vision new, more sustainable futures. Design education has a big role to play in this transformation and as such needs to alter its focus from the current outcomes of design activity to a range of alternative responses that embrace joined-up thinking and generate apposite learning outcomes. This paper investigates the sort of knowledge required and discusses the potential shift in values needed for design for sustainability to be accepted as a catalyst for change. It addresses the potential of current design education in channelling such change and investigates the sort of tools required for this to happen. Ultimately, the paper proposes, it is a key responsibility of existing design educators to prepare the graduate designers of tomorrow with the skills and inspiration to vision sustainable futures for this century and beyond

An investigation into the “beautification” of security ceremonies

“Beautiful Security” is a paradigm that requires security ceremonies to contribute to the ‘beauty’ of a user experience. The underlying assumption is that people are likely to be willing to engage with more beautiful security ceremonies. It is hoped that such ceremonies will minimise human deviations from the prescribed interaction, and that security will be improved as a consequence. In this paper, we explain how we went about deriving beautification principles, and how we tested the efficacy of these by applying them to specific security ceremonies. As a first step, we deployed a crowd-sourced platform, using both explicit and metaphorical questions, to extract general aspects associated with the perception of the beauty of real-world security mechanisms. This resulted in the identification of four beautification design guidelines. We used these to beautify the following existing security ceremonies: Italian voting, user-to-laptop authentication, password setup and EU premises access. To test the efficacy of our guidelines, we again leveraged crowd-sourcing to determine whether our “beautified” ceremonies were indeed perceived to be more beautiful than the original ones. The results of this initial foray into the beautification of security ceremonies delivered promising results, but must be interpreted carefully

Popularizing mathematics: from eight to infinity

It is rare to succeed in getting mathematics into ordinary conversation without meeting all kinds of reservations. In order to raise public awareness of mathematics effectively, it is necessary to modify such attitudes. In this paper, we point to some possible topics for general mathematical conversation

Building Middle-earth: an Exploration into the uses of Architecture in the works of J. R. R. Tolkien

Many aspects of Tolkien\u27s Middle-earth have been the attention of scholarly interest since the boom of \u27Tolkien studies\u27 but an area that seems to be lacking in criticism, but is certainly full of detail and character in Tolkien\u27s books, is architecture. This essay explores how important the creation of buildings and living spaces in Middle-earth is to the underlying messages of the tale and how the architecture of Middle-earth impacts the reader\u27s journey. This essay starts as we the reader does - in a hole - and explores the way that architecture is used to help explain hobbits, show their character and the growing map of the Shire. Architecture is also shown to be a technique used by Tolkien as a way of reorienting the reader between the real and the imaginary. Architecture is then used as a comparative point between the men of Rohan and those of Gondor, showing their cultural preoccupations and the significances of these. Finally, this essay wanders through the unusual architecture of the elves, specifically in Lothlorien, demonstrating that despite West Minster Abbey\u27s impressive design, it is the home of Lady Galadriel which is the truest embodiment of Gothic principles, and why this relationship between elves and trees holds a particular significance for Tolkien