Question

Data Visualization

Find two visualizations of data from a domain that is of interest to you (health, politics, finance, economics, world demographics, sports, etc etc etc). At most one of the two can be information presentations (static).

For each visualization, do a one page write-up. Each one-pager should have the visualization (about half the page) and then:
1. What message(s) the visualization is intended to convey.
2. A critique of the visualization – both pros and cons – ways in which the visualization does a good job, ways in which it could be improved.

2. In case of dynamic representations, comment how the Shneiderman’s mantra applies.

Answer 1

Shneiderman’s Mantras or rules:

• Maintain consistency
• Hot keys must be available for menu items
  • for example Alt + F to open the File Menu
  • Alt + B for Book marks
  • Alt + F – E to Exit etc
• Exception handling has to be simplified
• Enable the users to undo their actions without a complicated process
• Feedsbacks are to be as much descriptive as possible
• Get an outlook or overview of the system or situation
• Magnify and Separate out areas of concern
• Whichever minute details are required, focus on them

Data Visualization:

• In a text based data there are chances that the data may get unnoticed
• But in a visualized or graphical form of data, the critical data will certainly get noticed
• The traditional tools for data visualization used to be the charts and graphs from MS Excel
• The modern tools include Info graphics, maps, GIS data
• The latest versions of MS Excel comes with many types of charts like bar chart, pie chart, 3D Bar, stacked Bar, 3D Pie, stacked column chart, 3D column chart etc

Sports Domain

• Sports and exercises produce feel good endothermones in the human body
• Sport serve as recreational activity
• The sound mind in a sound body
• lack of sports activities make the human brain dull and sluggish
• Sports people are quick to grasp difficult concepts and are more apt in displaying intellectual ability
• A student who would normally take 2 hours to complete a home work can finish the same in 90 minutes
• if he/she engages in sports and exercise activities regularly
• The effect of the sports activity stays in our body for 4 days or approximately 47 hours
• Hence it is vital that we engage in exercise and sports activities on every other day or alternate days like Monday, Wednesday, Friday etc
• A sample data of the sports activities and same data visualized using chart tools:

Sports data to be visaulized
Name of the Sport			Stadium			dates
						from	to
Tennis			PatCash stadium			1/1/2015	5/5/2015
Basketball			Nehru Stadium			1/31/2015	6/4/2015
Netball			National grounds			3/2/2015	7/4/2015
Cricket			Parade grounds			4/1/2015	8/3/2015
Football			College grounds			5/1/2015	9/2/2015
Golf			Golf range			5/31/2015	10/2/2015

Visualized Data:

Health Domain

• Health, as a prime objective of every living entity, depends on fee factors
• There are certain diseases contributed by the genes present in the hereditary
• The DNA sequence is usually ATCG
• and the RNA is AUCG
• A = Adenine
• T = Thymine
• C = Cytosine
• G = Guanine
• U = Uracil
• The Thymine and Uracil differentiates the DNA and RNA
• Both are Amino acids
• The role of DNA and RNA in the health domain is tremendous
• Obesity affects most of the sedentary life style workers
• As they have lesser bodily movements they would need lots of after work activities like walking, swimming, jogging, sports to keep up their health
• The blood red cells maintain the antibiotic ability of the body to fight against the diseases
• The virus and bacteria can cause disease
• Virus is a special type
• Virus is neither living nor non living – as the virus can stay in a standby mode
• when virus gets in contact with the biological body like a human or a dog it can multiply and cause disease
• but if a dog has a cold, the human will never catch up cold from that dog
• Because the genetic signatures are different
• A human can catch up cold from only another human
• likewise a dog can catch up cold from an another dog
• Strong antibiotics would be needed to bring back the normal health after a virus attack

Health data

Health data
Name		Suffering from			Medications taken
John		Flu			Panadol
Melanie		Cold			ColdAct
Elizabeth		Caugh			Benadril
Peter		Hay Fever			Amoxylin
Stauart		Flu			Panadol

Number Number of days to pick up health Panadol ColdAct Benadril Flu Amoxylin Cold Panadol Caugh John Hay Fever Melanie Flu Elizabeth Peter Stauart

The Pros and Cons:

• In both the domains of sports and health, the data is presented in the form of bar charts and cylinder charts
• The data presents an example that is easy to understand
• The charts are crystal clear and hence the user can pick up the data quickly
• Hence in these areas the data visualization has done a good job
• on the other hand
• there are other better tools like fever charts, info graphs etc that are more dynamic and informative than these traditional charts
• If those tools would have been used, the visualized data could have presented a better picture
• hence in these areas the visualization had not done a good job and it could be improved
• there are scope for improvement in these above areas