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Unit 3 · Data visualisation

A table of 26,000 rows answers no question at a glance. A good chart answers it in two seconds. This unit is the HUD and the minimap of the game: you learn how the eye reads a picture, what each chart is for, how to choose the right one for your question — and how to recognise a chart that is lying to you.

Learning outcome Hours Term
RA3 — Visualises the data, representing it graphically. 8 2nd

What you will learn

  • Explain how visual perception decides what a reader sees first
  • Recognise and read the main charts: bar, line, histogram, scatter plot, pie and heatmap
  • Choose the chart that fits the question and the type of data
  • Build and configure charts in Apache Superset
  • Spot a misleading chart — truncated axes, distorted areas, cherry-picked ranges — and fix it

Lessons

# Lesson What it covers
1 Visual perception How the eye reads a chart
2 Bar and line charts Comparing categories, following change over time
3 Histogram and scatter plot Distributions and relationships
4 Pie, heatmap and others Parts of a whole, and two categories at once
5 Choosing the right chart From the question to the chart
6 Configuring charts in Superset Dimensions, metrics, titles and formats
7 Misleading charts How charts lie, and how to catch them

What you are graded on

The three assessment criteria of the unit's learning outcome, and the lessons that train each one.

Criterion Official wording, in English Lessons
a) The main charts for analysing data are known (line, histogram, scatter, pie, heatmap). Bar and line · Histogram and scatter · Pie, heatmap and others
b) The appropriate charts are used to represent the dataset. Choosing the right chart
c) The visualisation used allows the important information in the data to be interpreted. Visual perception · Configuring charts · Misleading charts

Unit 3 counts for 40% of RA3. The other 60% is Unit 4.

The datasets for every lesson are on the Resources page.