INTRODUCING INFORMATION VISUALIZATION TO DESIGN STUDENTS

Abstract

In this paper it is described the didactical approach used to introduce information visualization to students with a graphic design background. The approach is based on a four-years long experience in which this approach has been refined and tuned for better suiting the students’ needs, and it is specifically addressed to communication design students. While information visualization is a discipline increasingly required by studios and companies, teaching it to design students is not a simple task. Information visualization is not a direct, mechanical operation: it is more similar to a translation in which a number of choices have to be made by the designer. Choices are not just related to the visual side but also to the underlying data: how to select, filter, and aggregate it. To cope with the presented issue, the “learn by doing” didactical approach comes at hand. Students are faced with a concrete experience and provided with the technical means to solve it. By practically realizing projects, the aim is to learn design in its broad sense: how to design things rather than realising a particular artifact. By applying such approach in teaching information visualization, and drawing both on academic and on professional experience, a didactical approach was identified. It provides a process stressing most of the problems that arise when dealing with information visualization, allowing the students to face them and understand how to solve them. The setting can be seen as composed by a series of sandboxes in which students can fail, discuss and improve their knowledge. In the presented approach, students work in teams, with the goal of creating a real infographic for a newspaper. Each phase of the realisation (source identification, dataset selection, technical draft and final delivery) is defined by an output that students have to discuss with teachers and among the class.