Take Home Exam #1 (graded for feedback, but doesn't affect your final grade) DUE Tuesday, October 23 at 3:30PM)

This test is an opportunity for you to show me how well you understand the Information Visualization and Visual Design principles that you've learned and your skill in applying that understanding to produce an effective visual. It's also a chance for you to apply the strategy of identfying and emulating the visual qualities of an existing well-designed presentation.

a. Download this file. You'll see three things:

1. DATA/INFORMATION:

• Chart imported from Excel which show bus schedule information for route 249 (yes, it's not accidental that I chose bus route info - I figured you might find some inspiration for your project).
• A map showing the route itself.

  

2. TWO REASONABLY WELL-DESIGNED INFO GRAPHICS

3. PRELIMINARY DESIGNS that use the bus route information and arrange them in a way that is inspired by the model graphics.

YOUR TASK

a. Study the "reasonably well-designed info graphics". Look at how they use text (to label, annotate and add precision) and color (to encode, to highlight, to evoke, to set a tone). Look at how they create visual hierarchy. Feel free to talk with others about this to enhance your own understanding.

b. Do an analysis of the color and text like you did for the labs (e.g. make a series of rectangles for each color, make a *screenshot of the color wheel etc.) I've listed the principles you've learned and where you learned them in this file for your reference.

* When you make screenshots, paste them directly into Illustrator rather than saving them to a file and importing them (if you do that, when you upload only the Illustrator file, I can't see them - I get an error message saying the files are missing)

c. Write lots of notes with your observations (right there in your Illustrator file) - the more the better. I won't worry about grammar or presentation as long as I can understand them.

d. Based on what you've learned from a & b, modify the preliminary designs. Alter the colors and text styles to match how color and text styles are used in the models. Also make any other modifications you care to make - the goal being to do so in a way that is inspired by the models and is consistent with what you've learned about Information Design principles.

e. Write lots of notes about what modifications you've made and why you made them.

f. When you're finished, upload your Illustrator file here (the due date is next Tuesday, October 23 at 3:30 PM).

Here is what I'll look for:

• How thoughtful and insightful you were in analyzing the original visual (based on your comments)
• How thoughtful and insightful and creative you were in applying what you learned from the analysis to this new visual (based on yor comments)
• How well you understand and apply the concepts you learned about in class (uses of color, uses of text, visual hierarchy, how to associate text with visual elements).
• IMPORTANT: It's is fine, and even desirable to say "I don't know..." if you that's how you feel- don't feel like you have to pretend to understand - just go on to explain what you're finding difficult to see or understand. That will prompt me to do my best to give you my perspective which you may find helpful.

Here are the guidelines I'll follow to assign grades (just for feedback- this won't apply toward your final grade in this course):

• If you do everything, but your answers are brief and seemed rushed, that will get something like a 3.0
• If you do a solid careful, thoughtful job, you'll earn something like a 3.5
• If you go out of your way to be creative and insightful and produce a truly effective visual, you just might earn a 4.0 (but I encourage you not to do it for the grade, but because you want to learn to be an effective information visualizer).