ECS 163 — Information Visualization

The ability to effectively explore, analyze, and explain data is paramount in the era of computing and big data. This course will delve into the art and science of information visualization and interface design, tailored for diverse and complex data landscapes encountered in daily activities. The lectures will cover design principles of human-computer interaction, offer a comprehensive exploration of data visualization techniques, and provide authentic practices (e.g., in-class activities, homework assignments, and course projects) for implementing and evaluating interactive visualization systems. The goal is to empower students with the skills to combat information overload and engage a broader audience in analytic thinking through compelling visual representations.

Starting in Spring 2025, the course previously titled Information Interfaces has been formally renamed to Information Visualization.

Course Learning Objectives

By the end of this course, you are expected to:

  1. Gain a comprehensive understanding of fundamental data visualization techniques and theories.
  2. Develop the ability to create, assess, and provide constructive criticism for various visualization designs.
  3. Acquire hands-on experience in building interactive data visualizations using D3.js.
  4. Harness your skills to create a visualization dashboard for explorative data analysis or compelling storytelling.
  5. Engage with current research in the field of visualization through reading and discussing visualization research papers.

Lecture Information

Lecture Time: 9:00 - 10:20 AM Tuesdays and Thursdays

Lecture Location: Teaching and Learning Complex (TLC) 1010

Discussion Session:  8:00 - 8:50 AM Wednesdays at Storer Hall 1322

Instructor: Dongyu Liu, Kemper 2123

Instructor Office Hours: 2:30 - 3:30 PM Thursdays (in person at Kemper 2123)

Teaching Assistant: Yueqiao (Christina) Chen (yeqchen@ucdavis.edu), Jianxing Zhao (jxrzhao@ucdavis.edu)

TA Office Hours:

Tuesday 3-4 PM (Christina) [Zoom Link] 

Wednesday 4-5 PM (Jianxing) [Zoom Link] Passcode: 27JXEN

GitHub Repository for Programming Assignments https://github.com/via-teaching/ecs163-26s

Textbook: There is no textbook, but you may find these two books helpful for this class:

  1. Visualization Analysis and Design, Tamara Munzner, A K Peters/CRC Press, December 2014 (UC e-Resources)
  2. Interactive Data Visualization for the Web, 2nd Edition. Scott Murray, O’Reilly Press. (UC e-Resources, code example)

Additional Tutorials: Check Resourses Page

Course Syllabus Website Version (not guaranteed to be up to date): https://vialab.tech/courses/2026s-ecs163/

Announcements and Discussion Piazza (Canvas Integrated)

We use Piazza for announcements, Q&A, discussion, and project team formation. Piazza is more structured and searchable than email or chat, and everyone is required to join. The course staff will check Piazza regularly, and all class-related questions should be asked there. We encourage active participation by posting and answering questions—this is the fastest way to get help with homework. If you would like your question to be seen only by the instructor and/or TAs, please use the private post option. Make sure your notification settings are turned on so you do not miss important updates.

TA office hours will take place through Piazza’s Live Q&A feature, where TAs will respond to questions in real time within the thread. Zoom may be used when a live conversation is necessary, but should be reserved for cases where Piazza is not sufficient.

Grading Breakdown:

    HW Assignment 0            3%

    HW Assignment 1            6%

    HW Assignment 2          12%

    HW Assignment 3          18%

    Reading Reports             10%

    Final Project                    43%

    Class Participation            8%    (Workshops 2 * 1% + Project Proposal Presentations 2 * 1% + 4 * 1% In-class Quizzes/Polls)

Attending Discussion Sessions: There will be a total of 7 discussion sessions. Students who attend 6 or more sessions may earn up to 2 bonus points, and students who attend at least 4 sessions may earn up to 1 bonus point, applied only to the Attendance and Participation component. These bonus points can only make up for missed points in this category and cannot raise the total Attendance and Participation score above 8%.

All homework and project DUE dates are at 11:55 PM PST.

SCHEDULE (Evolving!!)

DUE For marking any deadlines

PROJECT For marking any project-relevant tasks

ASSIGNED For marking any homework assignments

READING For marking reading tasks

Week 1: March 30 — Introduction

Tue 3/31 Lecture: Course Introduction
  • Course Content and Learning Goals
  • Course Logistics
Wed 4/1 No Discussion
READING (Perusall Reading Task 1) Visualization Analysis & Design, Tamara Munzner, CRC Press, 2014 [UC e-resources]: Chapter 1, What's VIS, and Why Do it, Chapter 2, What: Data Abstraction.
Thu 4/2 Lecture: Introduction to Data Visualization
  • Definition of Visualization
  • The Value of Visualization (Record, Analyze, Communicate)

Lecture: Data, Marks, and Channels I

  • Sketching the Data Graph
  • Data Definition, Dataset Types, Data Attributes

ASSIGNED HW0 (Sketching Visualizations)

Week 2: April 6 — Visual Encoding

Tue 4/7 Lecture: Data, Marks, and Channels II
  • Visualization Design Process
  • Marks, Channels, and Visual Encodings

DUE Perusall Reading Task 1  (11:55pm, PST)
Wed 4/8 Discussion: Visualization Programming Overview + Reading Discussion (Yueqiao, Jianxing)
READING (Perusall Reading Task 2) Visualization Analysis & Design, Tamara Munzner, CRC Press, 2014 [UC e-resources]: Chapter 5, Marks and Channels Chapter 6, Rules of Thumb
Thur 4/9 Lecture: Effective Visual Encoding I
  • Guidelines to Use Visual Channels (Expressiveness and Effectiveness)
  • Perception Accuracy

Lecture: Effective Visual Encoding II

  • Using Space (In)effectively
  • (De-)Obfuscating
  • (Mis)leading the Witness

DUE HW0 (11:55pm, PST)

Week 3: April 13 — Perception Theory

Tue 4/14 Lecture: Graphical Perception I
  • Discriminability, Separability, and Popout

DUE Perusall Reading Task 2  (11:55pm, PST)

PROJECT Start to find your team members
Wed 4/15 Discussion: Reading Discussion (Yueqiao, Jianxing)
READING (Perusall Reading Task 3) Visualization Analysis & Design, Tamara Munzner, CRC Press, 2014 [UC e-resources]: Chapter 10, Map Color and Other Channels
Thu 4/16 Lecture: Graphical Perception II + Color I
  • Gestalt Principles
  • Color and Color Space

Lecture: Color II

  • Color in Visualization (label, measure, represent, enliven)
  • Color Harmonization

Week 4: April 20 — Implementation

Mon 4/20  
Tue 4/21 Workshop: Web (HTML/CSS/JS) Programming (Jianxing, Yueqiao) 

ASSIGNED HW1 (Static Visualizations)

DUE Perusall Reading Task 3  (11:55pm, PST)
Wed 4/22 Discussion: HW1 Details + Reading Discussion (Yueqiao, Jianxing)
READING (Perusall Reading Task 4) Visualization Analysis & Design, Tamara Munzner, CRC Press, 2014 [UC e-resources]: Chapter 12, Facet Into Multiple Views Chapter 13, Reduce Items and Attributes
Thu 4/23

Workshop: Introduction to D3.js (Jianxing, Yueqiao)

Workshop: D3 Interactions & Animations (Jianxing, Yueqiao)

PROJECT DUE Form project teams

Week 5: April 27 — Visual Navigation

Mon 4/27  
Tue 4/28 Lecture: Interaction Design

DUE Perusall Reading Task 4  (11:55pm, PST)
Wed 4/29 Discussion: Final project details, examples, + Reading Discussion. (Yueqiao, Jianxing)
READING (Perusall Reading Task 5) Subjectivity in personal storytelling with visualization. Information Design Journal. S. Carpendale, A. Thudt, C. Perin, and W. Willett.  IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics 23(1):48-64 (2017). [pdf ] OR More Than Telling a Story: Transforming Data into Visually Shared Stories. B. Lee, N. H. Riche, P. Isenberg and S. Carpendale. IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications 35(5):84-90 (2015) [pdf]
Thu 4/30 Lecture: Tabular Data I
  • Visualization Techniques for Tabular Data
  • Advanced Techniques for Multivariate Data

Lecture: Narrative Visualization

DUE HW1 (11:55pm, PST)

ASSIGNED HW2 (Visualization Dashboard: Layout Design + Visual Encoding)

Week 6: May 4 — Proposal Presentations

Tue 5/5 PROJECT Project Proposal Presentation Session I
Wed 5/6 Discussion: Story-Telling. (Jianxing, Yueqiao)
Thu 5/7 PROJECT Project Proposal Presentation Session II

Week 7: May 11 — Visualization Techniques

Tue 5/12 Lecture: Animation

PROJECT DUE Project Proposal Report

DUE Perusall Reading Task 5 (11:55pm, PST)
Wed 5/13 Discussion: TBD + Reading Discussion. (Yueqiao, Jianxing)
Thu 5/14 Lecture: Tabular Data II
  • Dimension Reduction
  • Modeling Time
  • Visual Analysis Tasks for Temporal Data

Lecture: Temporal Data

  • Visualization Techniques for Time-varying Data

DUE HW2 (11:55pm, PST)

ASSIGNED HW3 (Visualization Dashboard: Interactivity)

Week 8: May 18 — Visualization Techniques + Evaluation

Tue 5/19 Lecture: Mapping & Cartography
  • Spatial Data and Map Visualization
  • Spatial + Temporal
Wed 5/20 Discussion: TBD. (Yueqiao, Jianxing)
Thu 5/21 Lecture: Evaluation I
  • What is Visualization Evaluation, and why is it needed?
  • Controlled Experiments (Formal User Study)

Lecture: Evaluation II

    • Informal User Study, Case Study, and Usability Study

DUE HW3 (11:55pm, PST)

Week 9: May 25 — MISC

Mon 5/26 Memorial Day 

PROJECT DUE Project Progress Report
Tue Lecture: Graph and Network Visualization
  • Graph Definition and Tasks
  • Graph Visualization Techniques (Node-link, Matrix, Trees)
  • Handling Large Graph
Wed 5/27 No Discussion.
Thu 5/28

Lecture: Presentation Styles

Week 10:  June 1 — MISC

Tue 6/2 Lecture: Research Talk on Visualization-empowered Human-AI Interaction
Wed 6/3 No Discussion
Thu 6/4 Lecture: Research Talk on Visualization-empowered Human-AI Interaction

INSTRUCTION END

 

About Curiosity:

"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day."
— Albert Einstein