Module 1 - Developing a Critical Eye

Overview and Deliverables

• 8/31: Attend the initial course meetup at 8:00PM Eastern
• Introduce yourself on the course Slack
• Story 1 is assigned this week and due Sunday 9/13 (end of week 2)
• Make sure your software toolkit is set up (see the software page)

Learning Objectives

• Understand a data practitioner’s role as a storyteller
• Understand the importance of each of the “Who”, “What”, “Why”, “When”, and “How” of a data visualization story
• Begin developing a “Critical Eye”: the ability to discern poor quality and misleading visualizations from those of high quality

Readings

• Fundamentals of Data Visualization (Wilke): Chapters 1 and 2
• Data visualization (Healy): Preface and Chapter 1 (Why look at data? and What Makes Figures Bad?)

Additional Readings

• Storytelling with Data: Chapter 1

Meetup

Slides: Meetup 1 - Developing a Critical Eye

In this meetup we show a case study of how a visualization can tell a more powerful message when improved, talk about the course structure, list considerations and tools to use to craft a data story, introduce the neuroscience behind why storytelling is effective, and talk about quality issues for figures.