The goal of this exercise is to gain experience thinking about data types and proposing chart idioms appropriate for that data.
We will be looking at data about recent college graduates, from https://github.com/fivethirtyeight/data/tree/master/college-majors. In particular, we will examine recent-grads.csv, data about college graduates who are under 28 years old. The attributes for this dataset are described in the table at https://github.com/fivethirtyeight/data/blob/master/college-majors/readme.md.
We'll gather in groups, and I'll give you 15 minutes for the initial questions. Then we'll gather back to discuss and move forward.
First, look over the attributes (header) and descriptions for recent-grads.csv. Classify each attribute as categorical, ordinal, or quantitative.
Then, for each vis idiom below, give one example of attributes that could be used for that idiom and what channels they would be mapped to:
- bar chart
- line chart
- scatterplot
- stacked bar chart
It may be that not all of these idioms are appropriate for this dataset. If that's the case, then explain why not.
When we gather back as a class, we'll review the group discussions.
Then, we will brainstorm what types of questions might be interesting to ask using this dataset.