I found the lecture to be very useful. Re-aligning and defining what issue we are trying to solve helped a ton. It seems that most people agreed we should be focusing on the incoming students and connecting the departments. I think this is all very good as most of us have discussed not knowing many of the resources on campus. For example in my discussion with winnie I found out that we even have access to dental care at the campus. Since this proposed class plans to combine some departments and discuss how each focuses on data, I think the idea of connecting the departments in some way really aligns with the class.

The group assignment was very useful. I met with winnie to discuss the brief and go over it in more detail. We fleshed out our idea for the AR app, that would be created by students, and a collaboration between the departments. We also thought it would be a great way to let students know about events as we can add digital posters or flyers to let students know about these things in a more dynamic and engaging way. It would also maybe get more students to engage with these things as if they look great, students will want to see whats going on this week and check out the visually stunning flyers and posters more often. Also allowing this to double as a sort of AR guide/map would make it useful outside of just orientation. I also found a cool example of what something like this could look like. For an old Nintendo console, they partnered with a museum in France that gave a guided tour, had instructions on how to get to certain parts of the museum, and even had some of the artwork as digital assets to view and interact with. Here is the link!

The reading on the golden age of statistical graphics was an interesting read. By learning the history behind the graphs that we know and use today, it gives us better context and understanding. Because the ways to make many copies and print was now newer and cheaper, it led to this era with constant innovation towards presenting data. Almost all of these visualizations are still used today; without some of the beauty that was initially added in whether to make the data more enticing, or just out of necessity. Reading this truly led me to ask myself plenty of questions. What happened to that innovation? The reading touched on it briefly, but I truly am amazed that we have not had major advancements in visualizing data, as most of the methods that came up in this time, are the standards for today. My second big question came to thinking about the innovation of the personal computer and easy access to drawing tools on them. I would be interested to see how the innovation of the personal computer made graphs and charts more interesting, as with access to a medium this life changing, I’m sure it made a large impact and led to innovation as well.