The Good, the Bad, and the Infographics
To continue to appreciate the power of data visualization, during Weeks 8 and 9 you will again be creating and posting an ORIGINAL infographic - one that you've created, not one you've found on the Internet. Based on whether you enjoyed Weeks 3 and 4's Misleading Infographic or Weeks 5 and 6's Honest Infographic you get to pick which type you do for Weeks 8 and 9. To complete the assignment, you'll find a data set and then create an infographic highlighting at least 5 main points of the data. Don't forget to check the Weeks 3 and 4 and Weeks 5 and 6 assignments for resources about infographics.
You can create your infographic on any topic (PG-13 or safer, please ;-) - it doesn't even have to relate to IT. As with last time, please make sure your underlying data is valid - there are a lot of urban legends out there and some pretty unscientific "facts", too. It's worth your while to check out these articles, both of which include an infographic:
http://www.vox.com/2014/4/22/5636960/a-rough-guide-to-spotting-bad-science (it has a science focus but is generally applicable)
http://mentalfloss.com/article/68705/20-cognitive-biases-affect-your-decisions
If you're unsure about whether it's a valid topic or good data for an infographic, feel free to call out in the Ask the Professor board. It's handy if you can link to the data when doing so.
What You Submit to the Weeks 8 and 9 Discussion Board - Infographic Thread
1. Either a misleading/mischievous OR an honest/accurate infographic YOU CREATED (or a link to its location, accessible to the class), covering at least 5 data points.
2. Approximately 100 words (you can go longer) blurb on 1) why you chose the topic (i.e. why you think it needed an infographic), 2) why you chose the data points you did, and 3) why you chose to create either the misleading or the honest infographic - what made you pick the type you did?
Remember this quotation I found from another teacher: "Information graphics are interesting because they reveal differences." If your infographic is comparing something small to something bigger it helps tell the story if you make the something smaller visually smaller and the something bigger visually bigger. If, for instance, you were telling a story about gum versus lollipop sales, and gum was the clear leader, you could show an image of a big piece of gum and a small lollipop. If you were comparing sales of Trident gum versus Wrigley gum you could show 10 packs of gum for Trident and 2 packs of gum for Wrigley (that's just an example and I totally made those numbers up - I'm not even sure Wrigley still makes gum). Remember that you can use these techniques to unfairly represent data differences, too.
Free Tools
- Tableau https://public.tableau.com
- Easel.ly http://www.easel.ly/
- Piktochart http://piktochart.com/
