Making Sense of Data III

<p>Focuses on insights, approaches, and techniques that are essential to designing interactive graphics and visualizations</p> <p>Making Sense of Data III: A Practical Guide to Designing Interactive Data Visualizations explores a diverse range of disciplines to explain how meaning from graphical representations is extracted. Additionally, the book describes the best approach for designing and implementing interactive graphics and visualizations that play a central role in data exploration and decision-support systems.</p> <p>Beginning with an introduction to visual perception, Making Sense of Data III features a brief history on the use of visualization in data exploration and an outline of the design process. Subsequent chapters explore the following key areas:</p> <ul> <li> <p>Cognitive and Visual Systems describes how various drawings, maps, and diagrams known as external representations are understood and used to extend the mind’s capabilities</p> </li> <li> <p>Graphics Representations introduces semiotic theory and discusses the seminal work of cartographer Jacques Bertin and the grammar of graphics as developed by Leland Wilkinson</p> </li> <li> <p>Designing Visual Interactions discusses the four stages of design process—analysis, design, prototyping, and evaluation—and covers the important principles and strategies for designing visual interfaces, information visualizations, and data graphics</p> </li> <li> <p>Hands-on: Creative Interactive Visualizations with Protovis provides an in-depth explanation of the capabilities of the Protovis toolkit and leads readers through the creation of a series of visualizations and graphics</p> </li> </ul> <p>The final chapter includes step-by-step examples that illustrate the implementation of the discussed methods, and a series of exercises are provided to assist in learning the Protovis language. A related website features the source code for the presented software as well as examples and solutions for select exercises.</p> <p>Featuring research in psychology, vision science, statistics, and interaction design, Making Sense of Data III is an indispensable book for courses on data analysis and data mining at the upper-undergraduate and graduate levels. The book also serves as a valuable reference for computational statisticians, software engineers, researchers, and professionals of any discipline who would like to understand how the mind processes graphical representations.</p>