Data Visualisation
Overview
This unit aims to instruct students on the principles of data visualisation, and good design practices. Students will explore a wide range of visualisation idioms and develop the ability to create visualisations that empower users to understand real-world data sets. Students will also develop project management skills and professional ethics during their project and research paper.
Requisites
Rules:
Concurrent Pre-requisite
COS60010 Technology Inquiry Project
OR
Pre-requisite
COS60006 Introduction to Programming
02-November-2025
Learning outcomes
Students who successfully complete this unit will be able to:
- Critically evaluate data visualisations and propose improvements based on an understanding of human perception and cognition and data visualisation design principles
- Effectively communicate and reflect on the design process for a comprehensive visualisation
- Create interactive data visualisations using real-world data sets, maintaining professional ethics, the choice of visualisation idioms, reasoning behind design decisions and project management task
- Apply a structured design process and ethical writing to create effective visualisations within a research context
Teaching methods
Hawthorn
| Type | Hours per week | Number of weeks | Total (number of hours) |
|---|---|---|---|
| On-campus Lecture |
2.00 | 12 weeks | 24 |
| On-campus Class |
2.00 | 12 weeks | 24 |
| Unspecified Activities Independent Learning |
8.50 | 12 weeks | 102 |
| TOTAL | 150 |
Assessment
| Type | Task | Weighting | ULO's |
|---|---|---|---|
| Assignment | Individual | 10 - 20% | 1 |
| Class Exercises | Individual | 10 - 20% | 2,3,4 |
| Project | Individual | 30 - 45% | 1,2,3,4 |
| Research and Technical Report | Individual | 30 - 45% | 1,3,4 |
Hurdle
As the minimum requirements of assessment to pass a unit and meet all ULOs to a minimum standard, an undergraduate student must have achieved:
i) An overall grade of 50% or more
ii) At least 40% in the Research report
Students who do not achieve (ii) will receive a maximum of 45% as the total mark forthe unit
Content
- Introduction to data visualisation
- Brief history of data visualisation
- Data visualisation design guidelines, graphical integrity
- Visual variables: marks and channels
- Visualisation critique
- Analysis of user tasks in visualisation usage
- Introduction to Data Driven Documents (D3)
- Data sets and types
- Interaction: Manipulating view, Filtering
- Data visualisation idioms
- Colour theory
- Human perception and cognition
- Introduction to data visualisation research
Study resources
Reading materials
A list of reading materials and/or required textbooks will be available in the Unit Outline on Canvas.