VizItCards: A Card-Based Toolkit for Infovis Design Education

Shifts in information visualization practice are forcing a reconsideration of how infovis is taught. Traditional curricula that focused on conveying research-derived knowledge are slowly integrating design thinking as a key learning objective. In part, this is motivated by the realization that infovis is a wicked design problem, requiring a different kind of design work. In this paper we describe, VizItCards, a card-driven workshop developed for our graduate infovis class. The workshop is intended to provide practice with good design techniques and to simultaneously reinforce key concepts. VizItCards relies on principles of collaborative-learning and research on parallel design to generate positive collaborations and high-quality designs. From our experience of simulating a realistic design scenario in a classroom setting, we find that our students were able to meet key learning objectives and their design performance improved during the class. We describe variants of the workshop, discussing which techniques we think match to which learning goals.