Interactive Data Visualization and Society
MIT's course on building effective, ethical data visualizations for real-world audiences. Coverage spans perceptual and cognitive theory behind visual encoding, design principles, and the technical skills needed to build interactive graphics. Short assignments build familiarity with data analysis and visualization design, while weekly lab sessions cover coding and technical tools. A final project has students working with real-world big data supplied by external partners to expose and communicate insights about societal issues, drawing on the course's cross-listing with Urban Studies and Planning and Comparative Media Studies. Graduate students complete additional assignments beyond the standard workload. Materials come from MIT OpenCourseWare under a Creative Commons license and include assignments, lab exercises, and project guidelines, though there are no video lectures or a certificate attached to this OCW listing.