Sometimes I am like a hamster and gather everythings I found. These articles and tools surely helps me grow and hope it works for another novice as well :).

Online Browsing

Basic Understanding in VIS

• Why Vis?
• VIS area model (2021+)
• VIS contribution types
• Open VIS courses collected by me
• How to Read a Visualization Research Paper: Extracting the Essentials by Robert S. Laramee in 2011 (CGA).

Advice in doing research (esp. VIS) from senior people

• General
  • Many general suggestions for CS researchers by Matt Might
  • Rules for working in the group in UBC Visualization and HCI Lab by Tamara Munzner
  • 🇨🇳 可视化生存 Huamin Qu’s Summary in raising students
  • How to be more productive by Aaron Swart
• Writing
  • Process & Pitfalls in writing VIS papers by Tamara Munzner
  • Advice for writing & project management by Benjamin Bach
  • Niklas Elmqvist’s writing advice [Write a Review] [Maintain a Clean Reference] [Write a Rebuttal]
• Presentation
  • How to give a good research talk by Simon Peyton Jones from Microsoft Research Cambridge

Miscellaneous

You never need to worry about getting bored while doing vis since there are many interesting inspring designs. Here I list a few.

• General
  • Data Story Podcast
  • Data Visualization Society: highlight resources like [Visualization Book List] [Competitions] [Interesting Blogs]
• Charts
  • Xenographics: interestingly uncommon charts
  • Physical Visualization: interestingly tangible charts
  • Data-to-Viz Caveat: checklist when designing a chart
  • Visualization Cheatsheet: cheatsheet for creating a chart
  • Visualization Tools: a comprehensive collection of visualization tools by Andy Kirk
• Media/Communication
  • Visualization Collections and Designers
  • Information is Beautiful: highest award for vis design
  • Explorable Vis: a collection of interactive vis articles for misc disciplines
  • Data Comic
  • Data GIF
  • Data Video Transition Types
• HCI
  • Historical CHI Video Project: invaluable recording of the early endeavors in human-computer interaction
• Vis Research Browser
  • AI4VIS
  • Uncertainty
  • TrustML
  • Text
  • Timeline: [Timeviz], [Timeline Revisited]
  • Geo-network
  • Dynamic network

Tools

Project Management

• Documentatation: Notion, Gitbook, …
  • For Notion, I cannot live without the timeline view with gannt chart and the table view with many meta data.
• Online Edit: Microsoft 365, Google, Miro, Sketch…

Literature

• Search Engine: find relevant research/researchers
  • DBLP: provides stable .bib and database
  • Google Scholar: subscription helps you keep track of researchers of interest
  • Microsoft Academic: highlight their semanic search and elegant filters
  • Connected Papers: trace the citation network
  • You can always start from survey; Note that many topics in vis have their own “browser”.
  • Scihub
  • worldmiao: integrates common platforms
  • Library Genesis
• .bib management
  • Jabref: Excellent for grouping
  • Zotero: plugin for Overleaf is provided

Writing

• LaTex:
  • Overleaf: Online editing (check education account) [TVCG Template]
  • Mathpix: Image → Tex
  • Figma: highly recommend for prototyping and vector graphics
  • 🇨🇳 一份不太简短的Latex介绍: a brief introduction of LaTex
• Grammarly: grammar/spelling checking

Presentation

• template: Slidesgo
  • I appreciate this style as well:
  • 🇨🇳 trick: check Zhihu
• accessibility
  • pdf can be directly opened and view
  • Uploading pptx to Microsoft 365 allows online viewing those dynamic media
  • SpeakerDeck converts slides to images and allow you to embed in a website.

Design

• Color Pallette
  • 中国色: Chinese traditional color
  • Nippon Colors: Japanese traditional
  • I Want Hue: color blind + list of colors
  • chroma.js: LCH space
  • Simulator for color blindness
  • Adobe Color
  • Coolors.co: trending Colors
  • Affective Color Palllete
• Background Color Remover
• Website Screenshot
• Font
  • OpenType variable fonts: parameterize fonts
• Diagram
  • Lucidchart: pipeline
  • XMind: mind map

Implementation

It is 2021 already and you don’t have to limit yourself in d3.

• Observable: a notebook-like ecosystem for prototyping visualization
  • A tutorial from NYU Data Vis course
• Vega-Lite: declarative language is a promising media for automation
• three.js
• paper.js

Notes

I think it is a great idea to document everything. And I list a few aspects that can be worked on.

Checklist

• Writing: structure; notice; grammar mistakes
• Presentation: notice
  • e.g. put on #number, interact with the audience, put on your own understanding

Cheat sheet/Wheels

• latex shortcut
• utility function
• progress report template
• teaser/pipeline template
• video elements

Project Management

• Meeting Minutes
• Middle Result Logs
• Literature Survey

Personal Development

• Goal & Plan
• Unmatured Ideas
  • summary of literature & reference
  • problem, scope, strategies
• Reflections
  • someone’s talk
  • progress summary
• Tools, Cheat Sheets, and Skills