5 Data Visualization Dissertations Worth a Look

Posted by Nathan / May 23, 2008 to Visualization / 6 comments

5 Data Visualization Dissertations Worth a Look

It's coming to the end of the academic year, which means there are lots of graduate students frantically finishing up their dissertations, defending, and earning their degrees (yay!). Here are some tasty visualization dissertations, new and old, worth thumbing through.

Information Visualization for the People
Information Visualization for the People by Mike Danziger, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Comparative Media Studies

Form of Facts and Figures
The Form of Facts and Figures by Christian Behrens, Potsdam University of Applied Sciences, Interface Design

Practical Tools for Exploring Data and Models
Practical Tools for Exploring Data and Models by Hadley Wickham, Iowa State University, Department of Statistics

Visual Tools for the Socio–semantic Web
Visual Tools for the Socio–semantic Web by Moritz Stefaner, Potsdam University of Applied Sciences, Interface Design

Computational Information Design
Computational Information Design by Ben Fry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Media Arts and Sciences

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Comments

  • Noah Iliinsky
    May 23, 2008, 4:38 am

    I’ll not-so-humbly put forth my own master’s thesis for consideration. The focus is qualitative representation, not quantitative but, the foundations in human perception and cognition are 100% applicable to the design of any knowledge visualization.

    Generation of Complex Diagrams: How to Make Lasagna Instead of Spaghetti

  • Greg J. Smith
    May 23, 2008, 7:57 am

    Fantastic idea for a post Nathan!

    Ben Fry’s Masters thesis “Organic Information Design” is also an essential read.. it is (expectedly) a lot looser than “Computational Information Design” and fun to read now considering how popular visualization has become. The history/precedents that he tracks in it reads as quite an essential list of early web based work and applications.

    Personally, I’m really excited to read Mike Danziger’s thesis. His writing at Visual Methods is fantastic so I look forward to seeing his more formal research.

  • Nathan
    May 24, 2008, 12:48 am

    @Greg: yup. computational information design is one of the few dissertations i’ve read cover-to-cover. really fun read.

  • Moritz Stefaner
    May 24, 2008, 4:08 am

    Thanks for the link; another really interesting and original work is Yuri Engelhardt’s dissertation “The Language of Graphics”, where information design gets a thorough linguistic treatment.

  • http://www.gofrostfire.com
    May 24, 2008, 1:15 pm

    wow, great list, thanks

  • Nathan
    May 24, 2008, 9:02 pm

    @Moritz: thanks for the pointer! the name sounds really familiar, but i can’t quite figure out where from..

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