Temperature Diviner Ð The ArchitectÕs Friend.

Acknowledgement Ð I thank Prof. Torsten Moeller of University of Vienna (Austria) for his permission to use a version of this assignment.

The purpose of this assignment is to learn how to create visualizations using existing tools.  One of the tools for this class will be the Tableau software package.

Tableau automates the creation of visualizations and appropriate visual encoding techniques that we will discuss in class. Please follow the steps below.

1. Install Tableau

o   Tableau for Students: http://www.tableausoftware.com/academic/students

o   Drivers: http://www.tableausoftware.com/support/drivers

Note - Tableau content available at Tableau Public can be viewed in your web browser regardless of your operating system and platform. However, to author and publish views and workbooks, you use Tableau Desktop Public and Professional Editions.  

2. Peruse

o   Preparing Excel files for analysis - http://kb.tableausoftware.com/articles/knowledgebase/preparing-excel-files-analysis

o   Quick start guide: How to connect to data? - http://downloads.tableausoftware.com/quickstart/main-guides/en-us/desktop_getstarted8.1.pdf

o   Dashboard design: http://www.tableausoftware.com/public/blog/2013/10/dashboard-layout-and-design-2186

o   Tableau Tutorial: download PDF

o   Find tutorial data here: download CSV

3. Connecting to data

To make sure you are all set for the tutorial try to connect to an excel sheet (e.g. Office Temperature data, see link below).
If it works ! PerfectO.
If it didnÕt ! Try to fix it Ð maybe a driver is missing (see link above).

 

4.   Forming a Team

 

Create teams of size 3. Each member will have don multiple roles which include:

1.     Scanner: A team member focusing on the visual examination of data for outliers and anomalies in data integrity that must be corrected for before further consideration.  Some ability to clean, parse, transformation, filter and aggregate data a plus.

2.     Explorer: A team member focusing on exploratory data visualization in the attempt to discern relationship in the data.  Skills valued include familiarity with a variety of visualization tools and techniques.  Understanding of the pitfalls of data misrepresentation a plus.

3.     Assembler: A team member focusing on piecing together visual evidence with the aim of making sense of the data as a whole and drawing conclusions/recommendations.  Logic and analytical skills, as well as systems thinking a plus.

4.     Pitcher: A team member focusing on conveying implications, prescriptions and final visualizations; Communication skills and an understanding of the pitfalls of data misrepresentation a plus.

It should be noted that each team member can have multiple roles.

 

5.   The Homework

Create a Tableau dashboard (2 to 3 views) using the Office Temperature dataset.

 

Some background: Offices in a new academic building get very hot during Central European summer months. The temperature is above 30¡C (it is Europe) quite regularly.

Some nerds measured the temperature and humidity in 10 rooms in this building (see room plan for more info) J.

The spreadsheet also contains temperature and humidity as reported by the local weather station.

 In the spreadsheet this outside ambient temperature is labeled as room Ò1.00Ó.

 

Goal: The primary answer we wish to get from the data is: ItÕs too hot (the recommended temperature for office rooms: 25¡C) over certain periods of the day.

Your visualizationÕs purpose is to help architects plan for ÒcomfortÓ of the building for the denizens.

 

Inspiration: Please read this paper to gain a gestalt on the problem. Look at the kind of visualizations that they use.

 

Tasks: Use Tableau to explore temperature and additional data and pose more questions and hypotheses and seek answers through visualization:

o   Compare outside and room temperature

o   Consider

o   orientation and floor level of each room

o   weekdays and weekends

o   temperature per day/week/month

o   Show trends and variations of temperature across rooms, floors, and the building.

o   Do note that rooms, floors, the building, and the outside ambient form a hierarchy and you should wish to enforce that in your design.

o   Note that each room could be effected by the floor it is on, the orientation, and perhaps the size.

o   Show the correlation of temperature with the dew point and relative humidity in each room.

o   Create hypotheses:

o   Is a room hot or cold relative to outside given the floor it is on, or its orientation, or its size, or because of a combination of factors.

o   The room is only hot during midday

o   And so on.

o   You are welcome to use any analytical computations if you deem appropriate.

o   Also, ask yourself if the visualization will work if the building is as tall and large as the Burj Khalifa (in Dubai) or the Buckingham Palace J.

Create a simple dashboard addressing those questions. Download the temperature-dataset here (Building's floor-plan)!

We would like to stress that we are not looking for the greatest analysis. And yes, you can ignore the German in the floor plan.

This is ground zero and lab1; we want you to put together a visualization and feel comfortable.

6.    Critique (not evaluation yet)

o   Your task is to now critique the visualization you created.

o   Apply the design principles we discussed in class (Lecture Ð Week 2) and identify aspects of your visualization that effectively communicates the data.

o   Provide a  write-up describing your design including description on how the process used to do the exploration and analysis. 

o   If you explored the temperature or relative humidity across the rooms and floors as spatial distributions, please describe your techniques.

o   As different visualizations can emphasize different aspects of a data set, you should document what aspects of the data you are attempting to most effectively communicate.

o   In short, what story (or stories) are you trying to tell? Just as important, also note which aspects of the data might be obscured or down-played due to your visualization design.

o   In your write-up, you should provide a rigorous rationale for your design decisions.

o   Document the visual encodings you used and why they are appropriate for the data.

o   These decisions include the choice of visualization type, size, color, scale, and other visual elements, as well as the use of sorting or other data transformations.

o   How do these decisions facilitate effective communication and testing of hypotheses?

o   Understanding the data and evaluating the visualization may take some time. So plan accordingly.

o   Apply the design recommendations discussed in class and our readings.

o   Address the question of scaling the visualization to the Burj Khalifa or to the Buckingam Palace J.

o   Feel free to include alternative visualization prototypes (using your favorite tool) as a way to illustrate your critique.

o   Did anything limit or frustrate you? If nothing did, perhaps there is something that was more difficult than you thought it should be.

7.    Grading

o   The report need to clearly delineate the roles of each member.

o   We will evaluate the effectiveness of your visualization for communicating the fundamental aspects of the data set.

o   Does it give the viewer a good understanding of the different characteristics of the data? Please note that we are looking for both effectiveness and creativity.

o   We do realize that folks have differing levels of design ability and experience. Here, we are looking for a good effort, not necessarily some conference paper-worthy new idea.

o   The purpose of this assignment is to provide you with experience in the analysis of data and the design of visualizations to present the data.

o   Please prepare a  report containing your ideas, approach, some details of your implementation, worksheet and screenshots. The report and worksheet should be uploaded to Carmen.