CMSC 434            Homework #4            Fall 2018

Choice: "Hall of ..." or InfoViz

Due on ELMS as a PDF by class time on Monday, December 10th.

Homework 4 will be an individual effort. You are not allowed to discuss any aspects of this homework with others. For this homework assignment there are two options, you will do one of them.
Option 1 is to write a proposal to include a piece of GUI software in either the fictional "HCI Hall of Fame" or the fictional "HCI Hall of Shame" (note that we do not have an "HCI Hall of Mediocrity"). The idea is to spend some time thinking about this assignment and then select something that is either very good or very bad, and then express your reasons for thinking that. If you have a website that acts like a standalone piece of software, that would be acceptable as well.

You will format your proposal as a PowerPoint presentation. The main slide will identify the piece of software and you. The next slides will each contain a screenshot of one of the things that demonstrates the reason it should be inducted, with text describing those reasons. A nominee should ideally have at least 5 strong things about it to merit a nomination to the Hall of Fame (and at least 5 very frustrating things for the Hall of Shame). The final slide will clearly state into which "Hall" you think it should be inducted, with a brief summary statement.
Option 2 is to explore information representation and visualization (there are many tools available across the spectrum, including Excel, Google Charts, PowerBI, and Tableau to name but a few). The content and context for this assignment is "Generation Mobile" with historic summary data from 2011 and class-generated data from last year. The posted Excel file has summary data from an 2011 exploration of the topic and detailed data from a 2017 informal survey. Both data-collection samples have a bias. The 2011 sample comes from an unspecified collection of college students, obtained over Facebook. The 2017 sample comes from a room of CS majors taking an HCI class.

The overarching goals of this assignment are:
  • explore storytelling based on data
  • explore how to make visualizations or infographics to help tell that story

    Your submission should aim to make use of interesting and appropriate data representation and visualization to provide easy access to the conclusions you've drawn about the 2011 and 2017 data. Your specific tasks are:
  • Find 3 to 5 of the "most important" stories that you feel emerge from, or can be demonstrated by, this data.
  • For each of those stories, describe how you explored or represented the data to come up with or support that story/insight.
  • Provide a meaningful/interesting data representation/visualization image/screenshot for each story.
    There will be an entry on ELMS for submitting your PDF.





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