Creating Interactive Infographics: The Integration of Data Science and Creative Expression

Description

This project is indented to cultivate students' creativity in developing and designing interactiveinfographics by combining data analytics and artistic expression. Students often find it difficultto analyze and interpret large amounts of data. In particular, art students with relatively littletraining in science-related subjects tend to easily lose the motivation to learn about data analytics.Even though students generally have good analytic skills, they often neglect their visualliteracy-the ability to evaluate, apply, or create visual representations with creative expression.Therefore, integrating visual literacy into data science is becoming increasingly important topresent data in both an engaging and intelligible way. Information visualization based on creativeexpression significantly enhances human cognitive abilities to understand data and information.The PI therefore proposes this project to support the teaching contents of the following courses:SM3801 (Information and Representation) and SM3802 (Scientific Processes).The field of infographics refers to the graphic visual representation of data which is intended topresent information quickly and clearly. Interactive infographics enable interaction between thecontent and the audience, providing far more information than a static infographic. Creatinginteractive infographics is a highly promising strategy to arouse students' creativity and interestin analyzing quantitative data with visual literacy. Aligning with the goal of the DEC curriculum,this project seeks to motivate students to better understand how statisticians, data scientists, andartists explore the concepts and methods of information visualization by allowing them to explorethe utility of creating interactive infographics as a means of understanding society. Students willbe guided in the process of learning basic data analytics techniques and visualization methodssuch as 2D and 3D visualization and interactive dynamic visualization. In addition, by usingdiverse public datasets (e.g., energy consumption, air quality, poverty, wealth/gender inequality,infant mortality, health development, social networking), they will be encouraged to analyze largequantities of data containing diverse social, cultural, and technological issues. By not simplybeing required to display the results of analysis, students will be tasked with more deeplyunderstanding what the results imply by creating their own visualizations using infographics tools.The PI will lead students to understand the mechanisms underlying the general design processand aesthetic aspects of visualization that influence human cognitive capacities to processinformation. Many real-world infographics applications used across various industries (e.g., newsmedia, e-commerce, education, and medicine) will be demonstrated, and the efficacy will beevaluated by students in class.By applying knowledge of data science to infographics, this project aims at achieving thefollowing objectives:(1) To assist students in developing various visual representation techniques and learn theessential concepts of different visualization theories;(2) To help students enhance their critical thinking capabilities so that they can analyze the designcomponents and the impact that they have on individuals' cognitive responses to theinformation presented;(3) To encourage students to generate creative ideas and develop their own visualizations usinginteractive infographics by combining analytic techniques and artistic expressions;(4) To create an online archive for datasets and course materials that can be shared with anyonewho is interested in infographics.To achieve the goals proposed, a series of workshops on infographics will be structured into thecourse plans. In the workshops, a range of data analytic software and tools will be introduced toenrich students' capabilities to explore new possibilities of information visualization and itsapplication. Industry experts from the news media and commerce industries will be invited toinform the students about current trends and applicability ofinfographics. As an outcome of thisproject, students will be expected to complete their visualization projects by creating their owninteractive infographics that showcase how they can combine their analytic skills and visualliteracy in a final presentation.