CS 4460 Exam 1 UPDATED QUESTIONS
AND CORRECT ANSWERS
What is visualization? - CORRECT ANSWER The use of computer-supported, interactive
visual representation of data to amplify cognition.
Often thought of as a process of making a graphic or an image, but is really in support of cognitive
processes
Purpose of visualization is insight, not pictures
Two main purposes/uses of infovis - CORRECT ANSWER 1) Analysis: understand, solve
problems, answer questions, performing tasks
2) Presentation: use vis to communicate ideas, influence, explain, persuade
When to use infovis - CORRECT ANSWER More useful in exploratory data analysis
Let yourself discover, but also explain and answer specific questions ("...highest value when it forces
us to see what we were not expecting)
When not to use infovis - CORRECT ANSWER When you know exactly what questions to ask
--> other techniques that give explicit answers may be better (statistics, data mining, ML, etc.)
Analysic tasks for infovis - CORRECT ANSWER Search (ok) - finding a specific piece of
information
Browse (better) - look over or inspect something in a more casual manner, seek interesting
information
Analysis (best) - comparison/difference, outliers, extremes, patterns
Key benefits of visualization - CORRECT ANSWER Facilitating awareness and understanding
Helping to raise new questions and supply answers
Generating insights
, Telling a story faithfully and making a point
Visual analytics and its main components - CORRECT ANSWER Combines analytical
reasoning and interactive visualizations to help effectively understand large and complex data sets
Main components are:
1) interactive visualization
2) Analytical reasoning
3) Computational analysis
Nominal data type - CORRECT ANSWER Categorical
E.g. Gender
Ordinal data type - CORRECT ANSWER Ordered set, obeys < relation
E.g. Freshman, sophomore, junior, senior
Ordinal = ordered
Quantitative data type - CORRECT ANSWER Can do math, equal intervals
E.g. Distance, weight
Visual mark effective - CORRECT ANSWER Nominal ones will have:
- spatial region
- color hue (different colors as in like red, blue, green, etc)
- motion
- shape
Why? Cause they're categories. There's not really a sense in having markers that are scale-like. So like
one of those lines with the circle you pull up and down. Or different size squares/dots. You have
totally different colors to differentiate bars on a bar graph for instance.
Ordinal & Quantitative:
AND CORRECT ANSWERS
What is visualization? - CORRECT ANSWER The use of computer-supported, interactive
visual representation of data to amplify cognition.
Often thought of as a process of making a graphic or an image, but is really in support of cognitive
processes
Purpose of visualization is insight, not pictures
Two main purposes/uses of infovis - CORRECT ANSWER 1) Analysis: understand, solve
problems, answer questions, performing tasks
2) Presentation: use vis to communicate ideas, influence, explain, persuade
When to use infovis - CORRECT ANSWER More useful in exploratory data analysis
Let yourself discover, but also explain and answer specific questions ("...highest value when it forces
us to see what we were not expecting)
When not to use infovis - CORRECT ANSWER When you know exactly what questions to ask
--> other techniques that give explicit answers may be better (statistics, data mining, ML, etc.)
Analysic tasks for infovis - CORRECT ANSWER Search (ok) - finding a specific piece of
information
Browse (better) - look over or inspect something in a more casual manner, seek interesting
information
Analysis (best) - comparison/difference, outliers, extremes, patterns
Key benefits of visualization - CORRECT ANSWER Facilitating awareness and understanding
Helping to raise new questions and supply answers
Generating insights
, Telling a story faithfully and making a point
Visual analytics and its main components - CORRECT ANSWER Combines analytical
reasoning and interactive visualizations to help effectively understand large and complex data sets
Main components are:
1) interactive visualization
2) Analytical reasoning
3) Computational analysis
Nominal data type - CORRECT ANSWER Categorical
E.g. Gender
Ordinal data type - CORRECT ANSWER Ordered set, obeys < relation
E.g. Freshman, sophomore, junior, senior
Ordinal = ordered
Quantitative data type - CORRECT ANSWER Can do math, equal intervals
E.g. Distance, weight
Visual mark effective - CORRECT ANSWER Nominal ones will have:
- spatial region
- color hue (different colors as in like red, blue, green, etc)
- motion
- shape
Why? Cause they're categories. There's not really a sense in having markers that are scale-like. So like
one of those lines with the circle you pull up and down. Or different size squares/dots. You have
totally different colors to differentiate bars on a bar graph for instance.
Ordinal & Quantitative:
