From Scientific American: SA Visual Blog
By Jen Christiansen
What is visualization? When asked of data and information visualization professionals, answers will generally swirl around one of two punch lines…a visual tool that aids in (1) analysis or (2) communication of information. Last week in Chicago at IEEE VIS—an annual conference focused on the tools and technology of visualizing information—Purdue Polytechnic professor Vetria Byrd reminded me that visualization is also a process, one that requires us to think critically and sequentially though the information at-hand....
A panel on teaching across the researcher-practitioner gap focused on college, graduate school, and continued education. Insights and resources from the panel were rich and varied, from Tamara Munzer's literature-focused syllabus at the University of British Columbia, to Marti Hearst's active-learning and tool-centric approach at UC Berkeley. Jon Schwabish of PolicyViz declared that even as the community embraces cutting-edge tools for developing visualizations, we shouldn’t ignore that Microsoft Excel is the default tool across many industries. He added that we wouldn’t be realistic if in addition to the latest tools, we don't also teach folks how make effective visualizations with the ones they already have....