Data Studio, 2024
Syllabus
Welcome to Data Studio! In this course we’re going to learn to be everyday visual journalists.
Whether we’re building charts for our own stories or sitting on the graphics desk, this role encompasses everything from basic numeracy to design concepts. We’ll shore up our analysis and storytelling skills while at the same time becoming proficient in technical skills like HTML/CSS and Adobe Illustrator.
This is not a data visualization course! It’s a process class that accidentally ends up building a bunch of visuals, and a bunch of discussions that just happen to be about data visualization.
- What’s more important, data or graphics?
- What if you don’t want to be a designer?
- Why don’t we just do interactives?
Logistics
Meeting time: We’re officially scheduled for 9am-11:30am Mondays and Wednesdays, but we’ll most likely just do 10am-11:30am Mondays and Wednesdays. Some weeks we might throw all of the class time on one day.
Office hours: When are you free?
Teaching assistant: Jasmine Cui, whose email address will appear in the future.
Office hours: Sunday evenings, and… see below.
- When do you have classes?
- This will also affect due dates
Homework
Projects
The foundation of Data Studio is building projects.
Every two weeks you’ll be responsible for turning in a fully-fleshed-out project, featuring both words and graphics. In the first few weeks we’ll focus on the emotional and creative skills neccessary to brainstorm and execute a finished project, and then supplement that with technical, mathematical, and design abilites as we advance through the semester.
To guide you along the way, we’ll have both in-class critique sessions and out-of-class editorial meetings. The editorial meetings will be small group sessions with an actual data journalist who will provide guidance and feedback, while in-class sessions will focus on instructor feedback.
- What should the role of peer feedback be?
- When should we schedule mentorship meetings?
- How should you come up with ideas?
Readings
Readings (and …listenings?) will run the gamut from how to not screw up a graphic, to techniques for making something pretty, to war stories from journalists about putting together a piece.
The more exposure you get to data visualization, the better your portfolio will look.
Thoughts on readings will be assessed by small quizzes and short-answer questions.
Morning pages
Being creative is tough, so I’m going to try to cram it into your head.
Morning pages are tiny, tiny assignments due every day at 2PM for the first two weeks of the class.
- Are you really making us do this dumb thing?
Structure
The class attempts to be a balance of three approaches:
Critique
Critique will involve an examination of student and professional work. Questions might include:
- What decisions were made in the production of a piece?
- What went well, and what could be improved?
- Is the work accessible and understandable?
- Is it well-designed?
Generally each week’s selection will revolve around a theme – e.g. color, annotation, data collection – and will provide the background for other sections of the class.
Lecture
Lecture will typically be an extension of the critique section, where we focus on diving deeper into specific topics. Note that unlike last semester, practically all technical skills will be learned outside of class by reading texts, watching videos, or other self-teaching methods.
Response and code review
This is the reactive part of class, where topics that students have requested or need for their projects are covered. For example, we might cover how to use CSS flexbox if everyone is having trouble formatting the boxes on their homepage, or CSS margins to keep things aligned. Code review involves reviewing someone’s code and providing feedback.
If you have questions, ask them! They can change what’s covered.
Grading
- Projects and mentorship sessions: 50%
- Critiques and class participation: 25%
- Homework and readings: 25%
This class is very different from Foundations. The biggest change is you need to execute and fully complete every assignment, and hit every deadline for your projects. The first violation I’ll follow up with you, the second will be an official warning, an academic warning (which includes an improvement plan) and then academic probation.
This class is to some degree a “choose your own adventure,” where you can customize your learning path and set yourself up for a niche post-graduation. There are very few new technical skills that are required of you in this class – the goal of the course is to produce well-documented projects with a complete data diary and high-quality graphics. The tools aren’t (always) the important part.
Much of what we’re going to be learning this semester involves what I’ll sappily refer to as emotional growth: learning how to cope with imperfection, uncertainty, deadlines, giving and receiving critique, and making failure useful.
For example, people (generally) don’t miss deadlines because something is difficult, people misses deadlines because they don’t like what they’re turning in. We’ll get you over that.
Other grading bits and pieces
Honors will be given based on project creativity and execution. Pushing boundaries and learning new skills is rewarded.
Consistently unsatisfactory work will result in a low pass. Unsatisfactory performance includes missing class, not turning in assignments, not participating in class, or other poor performance that results in written or academic warning. On the other hand, if you have something you need to miss class for or there’s some reason your performance is waning, just let me know and we can try to make accomodations.
Weekly breakdown
Weekly breakdown can be found here. It’s a rough sketch to give you a general idea of what we’re planning on doing.