Information Visualisation (M) 2020/21 

Team Project (40%)

 Administrative information

This assignment will be done in teams of two or three (no more, no less). You must choose your own teams, but it would be wise for you to ensure that at least one member of the team is familiar with Python and the Jupyter environment. You might also like to err on the side of caution by choosing a team of three, in case a member of your team drops out of the course.

There will be a space on the Information Visualisation Moodle page for you to register your team, by specifying its name and its members. Please read the guidance on the Moodle page carefully. All teams must be registered by 4pm on Monday 12 th July.

This specification will be given out by on Monday 12 th July. The deadline for submission is 12noon, Thursday 22 nd July. 1

The Data Set

Choose a data set that interests you. The UCI Machine Learning Repository

(http://archive.ics.uci.edu/ml/index.php) provides a large range of data sets, but you may choose another publically available data set if you like. Under no circumstances may you choose any data set associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.

No minimum size of data set is specified, but you will find that for some aspects of this assignment it may be difficult to demonstrate the extent of your understanding of the concepts if you choose a small or trivial data set.

You are therefore advised to read the whole of this assignment specification carefully from beginning to end before choosing your data set.

Instructions 

A. Design and Implementation (30%)

1. The data. (0.15) Give a one-sentence title and description of your chosen data set, with a link to the source data. Describe and categorise the data set using the concepts and the terminology introduced in the course. Use examples as necessary. Be both specific and comprehensive. [The output of this part must be text comprising not more than 100 words.]

2. The tasks. (0.2) Identify and categorise the actions that users might want to do when exploring this data set, using the concepts and the terminology introduced in the course. Present this as a list of clearly defined and described tasks, with examples as necessary. Be both specific and comprehensive [The output of this part must be text comprising not more than 200 words.]

3. The systems. (0.05) Implement two different visualisation systems, both of which will allow users to perform these tasks: call them “The Zebra System” and “The Giraffe System” 2 [The output of this part must be a zipped folder containing program code and a demo video (max 60 seconds) for each system – so, two folders and two videos].

4. Design comparison. (0.6) Compare the design of the two systems by describing six different Information Visualisation design decisions you made. That is, choose six design decisions where you made one choice for Giraffe and a different choice for Zebra. For each decision you should:

• clearly state what the design decision is (for example – and trivially – ‘the colour of the bars in the bar chart’); 

• state which choice you made for this design decision for Giraffe, and which choice you made for Zebra (for example – and trivially – green for Giraffe, blue for Zebra);

 • describe alternative designs you could have chosen (for example – and trivially – ‘blue/green/yellow’); 

• clearly state which choice you think is ‘best’ for this design decision (and why) – remembering that it may be a choice that is not present in either Zebra or Giraffe; 

• support your discussion with clearly labelled and captioned diagrams and/or screen dumps. [The output of this part will be text comprising not more than 600 words (max 100 words for each design decision), with associated relevant diagrams and figures]

B. Evaluation (10%)

5. User evaluation comparison. (0.8) Compare the two systems by describing the results of a user evaluation of each of them, where each system should be evaluated by at least four people 3 . As part of this:

 • describe your evaluation methodology (that is, what you asked the participants to do); 

• describe what data you collected, and how you collected it; 

• explain how you analysed the data.

Your comparison should clearly identify which aspects of each system were revealed to be ‘best’ as a result of the comparative evaluation, remembering that it might be the case that both Zebra and Giraffe may both be ‘best’ in different ways. These differences may or may not be related to the decisions you discussed in section 4 above.

[The output of this part will be text comprising not more than 400 words, with associated relevant diagrams and figures. You must also include all your raw data, from both systems and for all participants in an Appendix. The Appendix does not count towards the word count. ]

6. Future work. (0.2) Describe, in detail, the changes you would make to both systems if you were to improve them, based on the result of the evaluations. Importantly: you must not actually make these changes – the code you submit must be exactly the same as the versions you evaluated. Be specific and comprehensive. [The output of this part will be text comprising not more than 100 words.]

Submission

 You must submit a document that includes all the text for parts 1,2,4,5,6 above, with each part clearly numbered and labelled, followed by a reference list. The references will not be included in the word count, and must conform to the Vancouver referencing style. At the top of the document (not the middle, not the bottom), you must include YouTube links for your two demo videos for your Zebra and Giraffe systems. Your document must have an Appendix that contains all your raw user evaluation data, clearly labelled.

You must also submit the two zipped folders containing your program code, separate and clearly labelled.

 Only one member of the team should submit your work to Moodle.

 Penalties

Penalties are necessary to ensure that all students take the submission instructions for this assignment seriously. Two-band penalties will be applied to your final grade if: 

• any of your word counts are significantly 4 longer than the amounts specified; 

• either of your demo videos are significantly 4 longer than the duration specified; 

• failure to submit either of your demo videos; 

• failure to submit either of your program code folders; 

• failure to include an Appendix containing your evaluation data, or failure to have four sets of user data for each of the two systems; 

• your references do not conform to Vancouver style; 

• your document does not clearly follow the numbered and labelled structure of tasks specified above.

These penalties are cumulative – this means that a maximum of fourteen bands can be lost! So: take care, not risks.

Assessment criteria

Advice

 • Read this document through, beginning to end, several times before starting the assignment. 

• Start small. Do not be too ambitious to start off with. Start with a small set of data and a small set of tasks first, and then grow the list as you get more confident, keeping an eye on the amount of time you have left before submission. 

• Start early. Your submission date for this assessment is only a few hours before the 24hr exam window opens. Submit early if you can. 

• Focus on the design decisions: that is what the project is all about. 

• If you run out of time, it will be better to complete all six parts partially, rather than only complete some of the parts. 

• Don’t exceed the word limits. You will be penalised if you do. Use bullet points as necessary – this is not an essay, it is a report, so adding structural elements that make your document easier to navigate is acceptable. 

• Use the headings and the numbered structure provided above to make sure that you cover all aspects of the assignment. 

• Aim to submit your report to Moodle at least 30 minutes before the deadline, so that you are not affected by any technical problems. No last-minute excuses will be accepted if you have not taken this advice. 

• Do not lose track of the importance of the report by focussing on the implementation; your implementation itself carries a low proportion of marks.

Team work

 All students in a team will initially be given the same grade. However, if you think that your final grade needs to be adjusted because of unequal contribution within the team, you must send me an email (helen.purchase@glasgow.ac.uk) explaining why. If this information is corroborated by at least one other member of the team (who must also to send me an email), then it may be taken into account in adjusting marks – although I may seek an interview with relevant students to clarify any particular details if there is ambiguity. 

The deadline for these emails is the same as the deadline for the assignment submission: 12noon, Thursday 22 nd July. 

Team work is an essential skill for the workplace, and we encourage students to work positively together towards a common goal. At the start of the project, may want to identify the particular skills that each member of the team brings, and allow them to contribute in a way that makes the most of those skills.

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