Overview

This is the course website for HCDE 511, Information Visualization.

Recent advances in computation, data management, and sensors are leading our society to generate an ever-increasing flood of digital information. Submerged within the data deluge lies a wealth of information that is potentially valuable to businesses, governments, scientists, and all human communities. In order for data to be of use to humans, we need to understand how to explore and communicate this information effectively so that humans can make sense of and draw valuable insights from the data around us. The visual system is the highest bandwidth channel into the human brain.

The goal of information visualization is the unveiling of the underlying structure of large or abstract data sets using visual representations that utilize the powerful processing capabilities of the human visual perceptual system.