IT 241
Information Discovery and Architecture Exam 2
Page 1
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Name _____________________________
This exam is closed notes, book and internet. One side of one page of notes is permitted.
[10 pts]
1. Perception true/false
_____ Recognition and organization are elements of perception.
_____ Interpretation and proof are elements of perception.
_____ Including illusions into a data visualization better draws the user’s attention to its understanding.
_____ The cones in the human eye react to red, yellow and blue primary colors.
_____ About 92% of the population has a named form of color blindness.
_____ Smooth pursuit eye movements are when both eyes track or follow an object synchronously
_____ Saccadic eye movements are the rapid eye movements to scan targets of interest
_____ Preattentive visual features are limited to color, size and texture.
_____ Change blindness occurs when the viewer studies a visual too much and can no longer perceive
change.
_____ Motion is a strong preattentive feature.
2. Fill in the following feature hierarchy matrix, regarding whether the feature reasonably supports
- ordered data (yes/no)
- ordinal or nominal (ord/nom)
- categorical (yes/no)
- relational (yes/no)
[24 pts]
Feature
Position/
placement
Length
Thickness/
boldness
Shape
Pattern
Connection
Example
Ordered
Ordinal or
Nominal
Categorical
Relational
IT 241
Information Discovery and Architecture Exam 2
Page 2
3. Basic visualization design. Consider these two graphics we studied in class.
[16 pts]
a. Which of the two graphics is best for discovering trends? Why?
b. What two changes you would make to improve the design of the left graphic?
c. Why does the right graphic complement the left graphic?
d. What two changes you would make to improve the design of the right graphic?
4. Distinguish among the scatterplot, cityscape and rubber sheet as 3-dimensional visuals.
[5 pts]
5. What is a choropleth map? Describe an example.
IT 241
Information Discovery and Architecture Exam 2
Page 3
[5 pts]
6. Below is a snapshot of an interactive radial visualization. How are the data point locations determined?
How do the choice/sequence of axes affect the display?
[5 pts]
7. Below is a parallel coordinates visualization. Explain the interactivity of this particular version of the
graphic, i.e., what does the highlighting show? How might the rearrangement of the axes affect the
appearance of this graph?
[5 pts]
8. What is dimensional stacking?
IT 241
Information Discovery and Architecture Exam 2
Page 4
[5 pts]
Describe how you might display 3 values in a matrix of dimension 4x4x5x5. That is, two dimensions have
4 possible values each and the other two have 5 possible values.
9. The following graphic is used by a code profiling utility
http://www.datavis.ca/gallery/images/sothebys.jpg
Critique this graphic regarding chartjunk, its data-ink ratio, basic organization and issues of ambiguity.
[10 pts]
IT 241
Information Discovery and Architecture Exam 2
Page 5
10. Modify the idea of a sparkline (or baseball wins-losses) to visualize the record of the 2012 Women’s
Volleyball match wins and loses. Show a) wins and losses, b) whether home or away, and c) loser set wins
(0,1,2); note that the winner win score is always 3. Not all data need to be shown, just enough to
demonstrate your idea.
[8 pts]
vs. Widener
W, 3-0
vs. Swarthmore
W, 3-0
vs. Frostburg St.
W, 3-0
at Haverford
W, 3-1
at St. Vincent
W, 3-0
Wittenberg
L, 3-2
Puget Sound
L, 3-1
Chris. Newport
L, 3-0
vs. Mount Union
L, 3-2
at Kenyon
W, 3-0
vs. Transylvania
W, 3-2
Penn St.-Altoona
W, 3-0
FDU-Florham
W, 3-0
Salisbury
L, 3-2
Frank. & Marsh.
W, 3-1
Carnegie Mellon
W, 3-1
Clarion
L, 3-2
vs. Moravian
W, 3-0
vs. Susquehanna
W, 3-2
vs. Merchant Marine
W, 3-0
at Indiana (Pa.)
L, 3-2
vs. Whittier
W, 3-2
vs. Claremont-M-S
W, 3-2
at Cal Lutheran
L, 3-2
vs. Scranton
W, 3-0
vs. Catholic
W, 3-2
vs. Goucher
W, 3-0
IT 241
Information Discovery and Architecture Exam 2
Page 6
11. Draw a tree map of the following hierarchy. Assume sibling nodes have equal weight.
[7 pts]