clarefranceslee

[clarefranceslee]

Clare Distribution Plan

Platform: I want to upload my work via Youtube or Podcast since they are the easiest and the cheapest platform since it is cheap and easy to share the link. If by any chance my piece gets a lot of attention, the sites can handle the traffic for me in contrast to a website I make on my own.

Target Audience: I want to narrow down my focus audience to high school and above, who maybe interested in majoring/minoring in Computer science but too scared to do so. I just want to share my love and spark that initial interest for those who are too afraid to start.

Interaction and Success: I want to see many people commenting. I want people to gain interest in Computer science and feel like it is cool.

Community help: I can send the link to CS professors and Wellesley/MIT CS clubs to get the initial boost.

[clarefranceslee]

Clare Tone Guide

Spirit words:

Free-flowing

Light-hearted

Informative

Fun

Inviting

Sata Words:

Overwhelming

Boring

Oversimplifying

Didactic

Rigid

Aesthetics:

Podcast - I know it will be a challenge, but I really want to try out a podcast for this topic, since I personally don’t see visuals super necessary at this point (I don’t want to go into the codes). Moreover, I was super inspired by Radiolab’s creativity. I would definitely want my project to be similar to ReplyAll and RadioLab.

Video - If video, I am thinking SciShow like a hosted with graphics show targeted towards the general audience.

[clarefranceslee]

IP: Korean Word Game - Final Reflection

After deploying my Meteor app, I asked couple of my friends to play the game. I felt great to see my friends leveling up and telling me how addictive the game was. It was nice to see how my friends suggested their friends to play as well. Many people gave me feedback and things to add. I am very excited to add items that they can buy with points so they can have extra time or score double points. Many told me that they want some kind of motivation for leveling up so I am planning to add achievements and awards in the very near future. Over the summer, as suggested by some of my friends, I want to include a battle mode as well. Although I could not add the d3.js animation requirement, I think my game is fully functioning and has a beautiful interface that shows the beauty of the Korean Alphabet. I hope people get to appreciate and enjoy the Korean language through my game and I plan to share the game with my friends after I update and add the features I mentioned above.

[clarefranceslee]

Wellesley Cares: Final Reflection

I thought we successfully accomplished our goals in our group project. Everyone worked hard and contributed equally. I am very glad that I got the experience of gamification from my group project: manipulating user profile options and points, since I got to use the same functions on my individual project. Although we struggled on designing the user interface, playing with the svg, bootstrap/foundation, and jquery because of their compatibility with meteor, I think we managed to produce a clean and intuitive interface design. All our functions work properly, and I was able to contribute significantly on updating user profiles, adding the points function, and developing the leaderboard. One thing we could work on the future is the option of allowing users their customized activities and a more social aspect, in which the users can communicate/challenge other users who are using the app.

[clarefranceslee]

Achieving the Course Goals

1. Did you achieve your own learning goals for this course? Did you achieve the course learning goals?

I feel like I have achieved some of my learning goals for the course. I took this course to help my development of my independent project and I thought the course helped me significantly. It really helped me learn more than I planned to, including important concepts such as gamification and data visualization. I thought the material I learned from this course is very useful and applicable. However, I thought I could not put effort I wanted to into the AMs and other works due to numerous external reasons. I would actually love to take a course similar to this, but a 300 level one.

2.What are the skills that you strengthened during the course and you believe will be useful to you in other situations?

I definitely strengthened my front-end development skills, which is very important to me, as I am very interested in developing applications and user interface. I definitely think those skills will be very useful to be in the future, and I developed a significant amount of work that could be used as part of my portfolio of website design.

3.If you were to take this course again (let's turn the time back), what would you do differently?

I would definitely manage my time better and stay on top of things. This course in particular was very difficult to catch up when I fell behind as it had a very steep learning curve for all the materials.

4.If this course is to be offered again, what parts should be kept and what parts should be changed and improved?

I think the workload was very heavy and there were tools such as meteor and d3.js that had a completely different language to learn. I wish the semester was longer so I can learn all the offered materials more slowly and thoroughly. However, since we don’t have time I think it might be better if the prerequisite for the class is cs110 and we can jump right into the API usage. I think facebook api or google api can be shortened to one AM and instead spend more time on d3.js and meteor. 

Overall, I enjoyed this course a lot, and it was extremely helpful for me and my future.

[clarefranceslee]

Reflection: Team Project Presentation

I must say how uncomfortable it is to see and hear a video recording of me presenting; however, I have to admit how helpful it was for me to evaluate my presentation skills. First thing I noticed is that with the types of courses I have been taking, computer science and cams, that mainly do not require presentations, my presentation skill has dropped significantly. It is sad to feel that I was a better presenter in high school. However, I am sure I can fix and improve my presentation skill with practice, as I did not seem to have any significant issues. I thought my eye contact and posture was fine, but I stuttered more than I normally would. I also thought my hair was not in place, which was in the way. I will definitely pin it next time I do my presentation. I though my pace was fine and my manner was okay, but can be improved. I thought coordination was acceptable as we did rehearse the night before and went over with our pltc tutor. However, I thought some parts were being redundant, and I remember I felt like I could not speak as much as I wanted to. Presentation can always be improved with practice and rehearsals; next time, I will definitely practice more and feel prepared so I will not get nervous.

[clarefranceslee]

Reflection on My IP Idea

I have done my research on the web and to see that there is a great lack of Korean Word games that are developed in to applications in contrast to English word games. Thus, I decided to develop a very commonly played Korean Word Game among groups into my meteor application. Thus, I will be developing an application in Korean. The game will be about determining how many words a player can name with two given consonants in 60 seconds. I am very excited to develop this game and cannot wait to share. One of my main concerns is that Korean Websites do not have an extensive open API source. I have not found a proper Korean Diction API and am still looking for a database/API source. I am also worried that working with the Korean Language will give me extra difficulties, as I am not used to manipulating the Korean UTF code. Overall, I am concerned with the time restriction as I am not sure if I can finish all my initial plans.

[clarefranceslee]

IP Idea Review: Distribution Planner

First, I would LOVE to use this application, as it is something desperately needed for Wellesley student. I am currently struggling on how to fulfill my distribution and how much is left. I am sure I am not the only one. I also think using d3.js to visualize how much the student has progressed is great and effective. I have a few suggestions. Do you think you can contact the Wellesley tech service center and see if you can login using myWellesley portal account? Have you looked into talking to the Wellesley portal api, if it exists? How are you planning to get the course information and how do you plan to update them? I think you have a great idea to work on and I would to see how your app turns out.

[clarefranceslee]

Gamification of Reality

What if we decided to use everything we know about game design to fix what's wrong with reality? Because I am taking CAMS 272, a course on games with professor Nick, discussing ideas behind game and gamification in this course was very interesting and relatable. I remember Nick mentioning an education system that is gamified. For instance, we have levels for each subject, achievement/awards for every language we learn, and earn points by doing homework or attending class. I thought this was a very interesting idea, as I got to ponder about how to measure or gamify areas like honesty or creativity. Since game is a design,  it will have to make sure to include all types of people and all the different cases. Although, it is an interesting idea to use game design in reality and solve problems, there are still limitations as humans are not programs.  We are not designed objects in a system (maybe we are, but that is a whole new philosophical question to ponder about), so to design a system that encompass all of us will be impossible and generate another group of outsiders.

[clarefranceslee]

AM5: Reflection

d3.js is all about Selection. I thought d3.js had a pretty steep learning curve as it was pretty tricky to manipulate the data returned and also just simply getting used to the language was challenging. However, once I realized that d3.js is simply knowing how to select which element and calling the right function on the selected element. My data visualization is about student enrollment by states in the academic year of 2003 to 2015. Since I could not think of any effective way to visualize the Wellesley course catalog, I requested an excel data sheet (csv) of the number of students enrolled in Wellesley from each state. I initially thought on doing the visualization with the data on international student enrollments but realized the world map is difficult to deal with and number was too small for certain countries to produce interesting data. Thus, after talking to Eni, I decided to work on State enrollment. I got the US Map Svg from Wikipedia, organized it so it suits my data and used the color ramp to display the number of student enrollment by state. By clicking each state, a modal will display the student enrollment from the state by year. I again used color scaling of the bar chart to emphasize the highest and lowest numbers. I again used the color scale to highlight the top 7 states of enrollment, by average. I initially planned to have lines, like the wind map, or airplanes scaled by the average number flying in to Wellesley logo to show the average number of students more effectively. I wanted to use animations as well but due to time restriction and my unfamiliarity with d3.js, I could not fulfill my original intention.

[clarefranceslee]

Group Project Progress

We got to meet up numerous times to develop the prototype and prepare brainstorm. We first defined our goals, which is not only to fulfill the group project requirements, but also to provide a method of healthy gamification of life style/habits. We also focused on having a simple and convenient user interface so the users can quickly learn how to use the application. We wanted to use our web application to promote balance in the competitive environment of Wellesley. Through our app we aim to help our users have a balanced life style between studying, sleeping, socializing, playing, and maintaining health. For these reasons, we chose a flower, a balanced five petals, for the user to choose different categories from. Each category will have different missions or activities the user can submit to earn points. The bonus task, which will be displayed on the note board is Wellesley specific so the users can feel more excited and relatable to the Wellesley Environment. I am in charge of developing different functionalities behind the point system and the leaderboard for each category (we did not want to use the total score as we want to promote BALANCE). We are using pivotal tracker to track who is in charge or what and how much everyone has progressed. For the group project, I should definitely try and manage my time more effectively and learn how to use Github more comfortably.

[clarefranceslee]

AM6: Learning Meteor Reflection

The meteor tutorial was one of the most helpful AMs so far as it was very easy to follow and clear on the main functionalities behind meteor. It talked about how to start coding, security issues, talking to the server, and finally deploying the app. I thought meteor was wonderful and very useful for me as I do not need to learn C or anything that I need to know to talk to server or do back-end development. I love how I can manipulate the server by simply knowing how to write html, css, and javascript. I thought this would really help me developing my independent project. The infinite potential of meteor and application development is stunning.

[clarefranceslee]

Reflecting on Dear Data and A Tour of Interesting Visualizations

Firstly, I was extremely surprised by the interesting-ness and the effort they have put into these data visualizations. I was impressed by their creativity, dedication, and visualization skills. I chose to critique the visualization of “a Week of our cities” as I thought it was the most comprehensible and interesting. I thought both Giorgia and Stefanie did a great job on this visualization in different ways. Giorgia’s was more comprehensible as her visualization involves a map. Stefanie’s, although abstract, is just as much understandable because of the title. I thought Giorgia’s method of visualization was more informative and helpful in which the audience can vividly see how their week in the city went by. Stefanie’s was also interesting because it was so much more concise than that of Giorgia, and yet it exhibited what Stephanie was trying to portray.

I would love to do a similar project like this, perhaps with my sister over the summer. Because I love food and I want to be healthier for my summer body I would think of a way to visualize what I eat by different food groups. I could easily record what I am eating and use d3.js to show what I am eating. I can color code the different food group and scale the size of the element by the amount of what I am eating. Perhaps I could talk to the nutrition x api to get even more detailed nutrition information about what I am eating and make that as my data point. Something to think about to do over the summer.

[clarefranceslee]

Design and Redesign In Data Visualization

The concept behind critique by redesign is a very interesting concept as it is something very unique to data visualization. As the article mentions, painting cannot be repainted or a book cannot be rewritten, but with information graphics, all you need is the accessibility to the underlying data sets behind the visualization. By displaying and interpreting the data in a new way, designers and the audience can think about the most effective method of visualization. It is also very interesting to see how three completely different designs can be produce out of the same data set. The danger of this redesigning action is that it omits the context and that each designer gets to pick and chose what to use from the data. Thus, the end result can convey completely different meanings although it is produced from the same data set. I can clearly tell that the redesigning process is very delicate and tricky. It has to be constructive and respectful to the original design, yet be able to convey something new and something that is critical that has not been portrayed yet. The red and blue map that portrayed the presidential election really resonated with me, as it was quite misleading. I thought the redesigned versions were much more accurate. If I were asked to critique visualization I would keep the maintaining rigor criteria the most. The article discusses how it is important to know the reason behind the visualization and what exactly it is measuring. Because a same data point can be interpreted in so many different ways, I think when redesigning to critique, I should be extremely cautious of what exactly the data conveys and how the visualization can communicate this measurement. With data visualization as such an important part of the media nowadays, I feel like re-designing as a method to critique is very important. As much as the field of data visualization is new, critiques and criticism is necessary for the field to be improved as a whole.

[clarefranceslee]

Guest Lecture 1: Data Privacy

The lecture on Data Privacy by Professor Darakhshan was mind blowing. The fact that people can easily figure out who the person is using minimal data and data collected over the net is quite scary. It reminds of an IOS application developed by BlastTheory called “Karen.” It explores the idea how sites collect our data to accumulate “Big Data” and provide them to other sites without us knowing. The app helps the players to explore the idea behind providing data and data privacy.

This topic relates to what we have been learning so far because our use of APIs teaches us how valuable information and data can be. Some APIs charge people when providing information, and it is in fact very easy to collect user data through these open API and databases. For instance, when I used the Facebook API, it did not allow me to access anymore than public information freely. Also, almost all APIs requires developer registration and getting API keys so that the data will not be used in wrong ways. I saw some API services that have been shut down because people were using the information in unethical ways.

I realized that as programmers, it is our responsibility to be conscious and honest about data use and collecting user information.

[clarefranceslee]

AM4 Final Reflection

Group project is always extremely difficult to work on as everyone has different schedule. I feel like my group successfully finished the group project by dividing up the workload effectively. Through this group project I was able to learn about the Google Calendar API and methods to parsing json data so it is easier for us to use. I worked on the user interface that filters the data by the user selected days and department. Although it was a struggle to get the filtered result to be dynamically displayed on the forms as the user selects two different filter options, we have successfully managed to have a working interface. We missed the requirement of having three filtering option, which we feel like it could have been fulfilled easily. I also feel like the interface can be more simple and stylish by using either bootstrap or foundation more thoroughly. One thing that is very unfortunate about the Google Calendar API is that there is no way to display or directly add on to the Google calendar itself. I saw some groups have created their own version of a calendar, but we have not. We made it so the user will have to check their Google calendar on their Google account, which I believe is not as convenient as we hoped our app to be.

[clarefranceslee]

Reflection of Visualization and its effective Use

It was my first time through this class that I encountered such an interesting way to visualize data using the web interface. I feel like visualizing data is important, as humans are very visual beings. By using d3.js, an effective tool to visualize data, allows us to communicate vast amount of data in a concise and comprehensible manner. There are four main objectives data visualization thrives to fulfill, which are: striving for form and function, justification, accessibility, and ethics. For instance, the visualization of the wealth and health of nations done by Mike Bostock, http://bost.ocks.org/mike/nations/, was striking, as it effectively demonstrated the improvement and correlation of wealth and health of each nation on a timeline.  Bostock’s visualization is a recreation of the data visualization by Tom Garden on the Gapminder, http://www.gapminder.org/world/#$majorMode=chart$is;shi=t;ly=2003;lb=f;il=t;fs=11;al=30;stl=t;st=t;nsl=t;se=t$wst;tts=C$ts;sp=5.59290322580644;ti=2013$zpv;v=0$inc_x;mmid=XCOORDS;iid=phAwcNAVuyj1jiMAkmq1iMg;by=ind$inc_y;mmid=YCOORDS;iid=phAwcNAVuyj2tPLxKvvnNPA;by=ind$inc_s;uniValue=8.21;iid=phAwcNAVuyj0XOoBL_n5tAQ;by=ind$inc_c;uniValue=255;gid=CATID0;by=grp$map_x;scale=log;dataMin=194;dataMax=96846$map_y;scale=lin;dataMin=23;dataMax=86$map_s;sma=49;smi=2.65$cd;bd=0$inds=;example=75. This data visualization made me realized how much of an impact visualization can make in contrast to list of numbers. Each element on these data visualization seems to serve a purpose with meaningful functions behind. It is both aesthetically please and simple enough for the user to easily interact with the interface. The data demonstrated seems honest and concise. I can say that these visualizations fulfill all three common purposes of data visualization, which are explanatory, exploratory, and exhibitive. The data visualization I explored above both allows the user to explore while beautiful exhibiting and explaining information about the relationship between health and wealth of a nation.