Instructor: Robert Faludi
Contemporary interaction designers and artists often manipulate scientific, historical, commercial and social information. Literacy in design, art or engineering requires the complement of literacy in data. This class makes a powerful additions to your skill set of programming, visual design and electronics. Students become conversant in the tools available for extracting insightful information from real-world samples. In this class we learn about the “lies, damn lies and statistics” that are encountered in our daily information feeds. Basic training is provided in a variety of handy methods for interpretation and manipulation of data, yet no math beyond some simple arithmetic is required for completing this course. Materials are visually oriented, and the focus is on concepts rather than on mechanics. Exercises include analyzing maps, building physical models and exploring information via accessible computer simulations. Short projects teach how to understand where data comes from, what it looks like and what it means. Students learn how to transform data in ways that avoid distortions, reveal truths and grandly illuminate their ideas.