Students will participate in a group project, from proposal concept to project prototype. Over the course of the residency, students will implement concepts, methods, and strategies as well as experiment with technologies and applications used to create visualizations. NOTE: This is a required on-campus course.

Students will end their program by presenting their thesis prototypes. Students will attend each others presentations in a panel review, and will be expected to participate in a critique of each others’ projects based on criteria and guidelines provided. *NOTE: The thesis presentations are the culmination of MVIS 5102 Thesis Development. Each student will be recorded and receive feedback from their panel team.

This course focuses on the process of developing compelling narratives using information and data. Students study forms of storytelling, and how techniques such as sequence, relationship, context, and audience can be combined through analysis and design strategies to tell a powerful and compelling visual story. Additional methods such as editing, iterative process, and evaluation are also introduced as methods to refine information and data to strengthen and clarify a visual story.

In this intensive course, students prepare a final thesis project from concept to a fully-realized product, using research and materials developed over the course of the program. Students work with a faculty advisor who provides guidance and critique for projects as well as provides guidance for the Residency 3 student presentations. For the Residency 3 presentation, students must describe their project process, including concept development, research and development documentation, and design.

The course provides an overview of art and design theories, methods, and applications such as design thinking, color theory, graphic design, constructive critique, and prototyping. Students investigate and apply these theories, methods, and applications to create visualizations that tell a well-designed visual story.

The course provides an overview of probability and statistics concepts commonly used in the visualization process. Students learn concepts such as histograms, statistical measures, sampling, distributions, correlation, regression, and fitting. This course is in preparation for the Statistical Applications for Information Visualization course.

The course focuses on perception theories in the arts and sciences, and methods by which information is visually acquired and processed. Students will gain an understanding of how the mind/brain receives, acquires, processes, and stores information and data through cognitive neuropsychology combined with design strategies such as patterning, spatial relationships, shape, and color.

This course focuses on historical, cultural, social, economic, and political contexts of visualizations and information access. In addition to perspectives and research from the fields of art history, art theory, and studies of visual culture, students explore how visualization has been and is currently being used by a variety of industries to tell compelling narratives in visual formats.

The course introduces students to research methods for gathering and analyzing information and data that are central to visualization. Topics will include data mining, data aggregation, grouping methods, data cleaning, and evaluation. Students will explore tools and applications that help establish and/or understand statistical relationships with data and information and how to begin transforming research into visualizations.

This course explores analytical reasoning using tools and techniques such as mind maps, storyboards, wireframing, tree maps, and prototyping. Topics include information architecture, human reasoning, networking, mapping, and user-centered design to create a cohesive and compelling story.

This course synthesizes key elements related to presenting information including design theory, aesthetics, visual rhetoric, and visual interface design. Students identify and critique information design case studies, gaining exposure to a wide variety of methods and applications related to the design and presentation of information and data.

This course will focus on the project decision making process, project management, and user interface design and testing. Students will explore the range of visualization applications, both digital and analog, how the medium used influences the message communicated, and strategies for deciding which medium best suits the story, the data/information, the target audience, and/or the intent of a visualization. Students will explore and develop user interface design strategies as well as develop user testing instruments as part of the final design process.