230 likes | 243 Views
UFinder is an interactive tool designed for data exploration and decision-making to help users choose a school from a dataset of 1300 US colleges and universities. With 33 hierarchical variables, users can set ranges and weights to visualize and rank schools based on their preferences. The tool addresses initial design problems like missing data and slider layout efficiency and aims to incorporate multiple levels of ValueCharts for enhanced decision-making.
E N D
UFinderAn interactive tool for data exploration and decision-making Jeanette Bautista Micheline Manske
Problem • There are many variables to consider when choosing a school • Everyone assigns weights these variables differently Solution • Visualization that allows users to select ranges for variables to reduce the number of schools • Interactive tool to allow users to weight variables differently and explore how this changes the rankings of schools
Data set • 1300 US colleges and universities • 33 variables • Variables are arranged hierarchically
Caliber of students Cost / year school living marks % top 25 graduation rate books tuition additional fees room & board math verbal ACT spending room board Environment student / faculty ratio total # students Acceptance full time % applications received / accepted % new students enrolled / accepted part time
Problems encountered • Some data values missing • Slider layout may use up too much screen space
0 50 000 100 000 Cost / year 0 - 100 000 Environment 0 - 100 Caliber of students 0 - 100 Acceptance 0 - 100
0 25 000 50 000 Cost / year 0 – 100 000 School 0 – 60 000 books 0 - 5000 tuition 0 - 50 000 additional fees 0 - 5000 Living 0 – 40 000 room & board 0 – 25 000 room 0 – 15 000 board 0 – 10 000 personal expenses 0 – 15 000 Environment 0 - 100 Caliber of students 0 - 100 Acceptance 0 - 100
0 25 000 50 000 Cost / year 0 – 70 000 School 0 – 30 000 books 0 - 5000 tuition 0 - 20 000 additional fees 0 - 5000 Living 0 – 40 000 room & board 0 – 25 000 room 0 – 15 000 board 0 – 10 000 personal expenses 0 – 15 000 Environment 0 - 100 Caliber of students 0 - 100 Acceptance 0 - 100
Problems encountered • Some data values missing • Slider layout may use up too much screen space • Combining values hierarchically may be difficult
Caliber of students Cost / year school living marks % top 25 graduation rate books tuition additional fees room & board math verbal ACT spending room board Environment student / faculty ratio total # students Acceptance full time % applications received / accepted % new students enrolled / accepted part time
Problems encountered • Some data values missing • Slider layout may use up too much screen space • Combining values hierarchically may be difficult it depends on how much you value each component
Problems with ValueCharts • A value for a variable must represent a positive aspect in ValueCharts. - inverse relation • There are too many schools to list them all - sliders to narrow range • There are too many variables to have a column for each - multiple value charts
Where we’re at • Become familiar with the InfoVis toolkit • Discuss ideas with Giuseppe Carenini • Implement preliminary interface (no functionality)
Where we’re going • Get sliders working with a scatterplot • Implementation with ValueCharts • Incorporation of multiple levels of ValueCharts • Extension?
References [1] Giuseppe Carenini and John Lloyd. ValueCharts: Analyzing Linear Models Expressing Preferences and Evaluation. In publication. [2] Jean-Daniel Fekete. The InfoVis Toolkit. Version 0.6alpha2, 2004. http://www.lri.fr/~fekete/InfovisToolkit/ [3] US News “colleges” data set. 1995 Data Analysis Exposition sponsored by the Statistical Graphics Section of the American Statistical Association. http://lib.stat.cmu.edu/datasets/