Course Philosophy

Course website - For the year 2026 - 2027

How I position this course

Although I built the course materials over 3 years of teaching, changing ideas, and adapting the content to fit into the evolving world of technology,

I position it as a module of a much larger syllabus about data vizulization.

The first steps me and my students take intot he world of “making data speak”, is to first learn about the fundamental elements of data visualization.

My method for doing this is to follow the “5 What” principle:

  • What is Data, its different types and formats
  • What are the fundamental data representation methods
  • What are the main goals and objectives of a vizulizations
  • What chart type represents best each data type
  • What rules to follow to make the mos faithful representation of data

So as you can see, this part is the last topic I disscuss in class. Because in my humble opinion, it is better to begin at the beginings (like Alice in Wonderland said).

Understand the nature of the raw matter your will work with, understand the goals and objectives, start doing some data visualizations, and then, only then, you can fully appreciate the value of these rules.

The story of the GoldenViz Library

To help me be more effecient in grading students, giving them the most honest and neutral evaluation of thier work,

over the years I had to come up with a way to automate and industrilize this analysis and evaluation.

It started as a simple script to return a simple report and catch the most common errors, and all of the sudden I ended up with a spaghetti codebase that needed to be organized and cleaned.

Few months later, with the help of input and feedback from students, friends and collegues : GoldenViz Library was born.

I use GoldenViz as a teaching support, not as a machine that produces chart evaluation.

What matters to me is not automation for its own sake, but visual judgment.

I want students to understand why one chart works, why another fails, and what kinds of design choices create that difference.

The three ideas behind the book

I build this course on three simple ideas.

  1. A chart must contain enough context to be understood.
  2. A chart must be easy to read.
  3. A chart must not mislead.

Those three ideas become the three major principles of the book:

Principle What I mean by it
Completeness The chart gives the reader the context needed to interpret it
Readability The chart does not create avoidable effort for the reader
Integrity The chart respects the data and does not exaggerate, hide, or distort

Who this book is for

I wrote this book mainly for three kinds of readers:

  • beginners in data visualization
  • non-specialists working in notebooks, reports, or presentations
  • students who know how to produce charts technically, but do not yet know how to critique them well

How I use these rules in teaching

In practice, I use the rules in several ways. Sometimes they act as a checklist before submission. Sometimes they become a critique grid during practical workshops. Sometimes they help structure a lecture, a discussion, or a peer-review exercise.

What matters is not memorizing the rules mechanically.

What matters is learning to see what the rule is protecting.

An important nuance

Not every rule should be applied blindly.

Some rules are very strong and should rarely be broken.

Others are more advisory.

In this book, I want students to learn both discipline and judgment:

  • when to follow a rule strictly,

  • and when an exception is genuinely justified.