Data Vis @ TAU
Course page for teaching materials, 23/24 (Semester A)
Data Vis @ TAU
This semester of Data Visualization focused on visual reasoning, chart design, dashboard construction, and applied storytelling with data using Tableau and iterative critique.
Course Outline
Data Vis (Semester A 23/24) introduces the purpose and foundations of data visualization and builds practical skills in Tableau. You’ll move from defining visualization and its history to data abstraction, task abstraction, and encoding with marks and channels. The course then focuses on chart types, perception and Gestalt principles, interaction, manipulation, and dashboard design. Along the way you’ll practice chart critique, decoding, and iterative building, culminating in a final project and (optional) data-driven storytelling.
| Lecture | Topic | Focus |
|---|---|---|
| Week 1 (03/01/24) | Why Data Visualization? | Motivation for data vis, brief history, core definitions, and an intuitive introduction to what visualization does and why it matters. |
| Week 2 (10/01/24) | Data Abstraction + Tableau Basics | What to visualize (data abstraction) and how Tableau is organized: interface tour, worksheets vs dashboards vs stories, dimensions vs measures, first build with a sample dataset. |
| Week 2–3 | Data Preparation | Loading, cleaning, and preparing data for analysis and visualization workflows. |
| Week 3 (17/01/24) | Task Abstraction + Marks & Channels | Why you visualize (tasks and goals) and how you encode data: marks, channels, and how to read/decode charts critically. |
| Catch-Up Week (24/01/24) | Foundations Review | Consolidation of early concepts: definitions, abstraction (what/why), and marks & channels. |
| Week 4 (31/01/24) | Chart Types + Perception & Gestalt | Selecting chart types and understanding how people perceive visuals; Gestalt principles and common perceptual pitfalls. |
| Week 4–5 | Implementing Charts in Tableau + Critique | Building charts in Tableau, adding basic interactivity, and practicing structured visualization critique. |
| Week 5 and after (07/02/24+) | Interaction, Manipulation, and Dashboards (Optional: Storytelling) | Chart-level interactions, manipulating and arranging views, combining sheets into dashboards, dashboard rules and analysis, and (optionally) data-driven storytelling patterns. |
Course Materials
This semester’s page intentionally exposes only a compact public subset of available materials. The fuller course framing lives in the outline above, while the shared Data Vis page collects reusable lecture materials across semesters.
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T4 - Tableau Dashboards - Lecture slides
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Catch-Up Week - Lecture slides