CS-GY 6313: Information Visualization - Resources

Course Resources

← Back to Course Home | Syllabus | Schedule

Development Tools

Primary Tools

• Observable - Interactive JavaScript notebooks for data visualization
• Vega-Lite - High-level grammar for visualization
• D3.js - Data-Driven Documents library

Documentation

• Vega-Lite Documentation
• D3.js Documentation
• Observable Documentation
• MDN Web Docs - JavaScript, HTML, CSS, SVG references

Textbooks (Recommended)

• Visualization Analysis and Design by Tamara Munzner (CRC Press, 2014)
• Information Visualization: Perception for Design by Colin Ware (Morgan Kaufmann, 2019)
• Interactive Data Visualization for the Web by Scott Murray (O’Reilly Media, 2017)
• Fullstack Data Visualization with D3 by Amelia Wattenberger (Fullstack.io, 2019)

Datasets

Sample Datasets for Exercises

• Vega Datasets - Collection of sample datasets
• NYC Open Data - NYC government data portal
• Data.gov - US government open data
• Our World in Data - Research and data on global issues
• Gapminder - Global development data

Geographic Data

• Natural Earth - Public domain map data
• US Census Bureau - US demographic and geographic data
• OpenStreetMap - Collaborative mapping project

Visualization Examples & Inspiration

Galleries

• Observable Gallery - Curated visualization examples
• D3 Gallery - D3.js examples
• Vega-Lite Gallery - Vega-Lite examples
• Information is Beautiful - Award-winning visualizations
• FlowingData - Visualization blog by Nathan Yau

News Graphics

• New York Times Graphics
• Washington Post Graphics
• FiveThirtyEight
• The Pudding - Visual essays

Academic Resources

Key Papers & Articles

Specific papers will be assigned weekly - see Schedule

Conferences & Journals

• IEEE VIS - Premier visualization conference
• EuroVis - European visualization conference
• IEEE TVCG - Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics
• Computer Graphics Forum - Journal of the Eurographics Association

Color Resources

• ColorBrewer - Color schemes for maps and charts
• Viridis - Perceptually uniform color scales
• Adobe Color - Color palette generator
• Accessible Colors - Check color contrast for accessibility

Accessibility

• WCAG Guidelines - Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
• ARIA Best Practices - Accessible Rich Internet Applications
• Inclusive Design Principles

Additional Learning

Online Courses & Tutorials

• Data Visualization with D3.js - Coursera
• Introduction to D3.js - Observable
• Vega-Lite: A Grammar of Interactive Graphics - Observable

Blogs & Communities

• DataWrapper Blog - Chart best practices
• Visualizing Data - Andy Kirk’s visualization blog
• Data Visualization Society - Professional community
• r/dataisbeautiful - Reddit community

Getting Help

• Course Discord: Join Course Discord
• Office Hours:
  • Ryan Kim (TA): Wednesdays @ 2PM-3PM, 8th floor common area @ 370 Jay Street, Brooklyn (also Online @ Zoom)
• Stack Overflow: Use tags d3.js, vega-lite, observable
• Observable Forum: talk.observablehq.com