Story of R, Data Visualization and Programming Study
The blog is for Product Design 3 (Our Daily Data) taught by Mitsui Minoru, Ph.D. in Top-D Programme of Chiba University. The theme of the workshop is about data visualization and R programming.
When I first met with the workshop
Actually, I have had no idea about why we should learn R. People always say that it’s the era of data now, which I’m also agree with, but why R? As we known, a large amount of Chinese students like using Bilibili to seek for some studying resource. When you search for ‘Data Visualization’ in Bilibili, the video usually recommend you to use Python instead of R.
Well, after some research, I found that R was fit with Statistics. Besides, it is an open source programming language, so it can really help the researchers and learners who don’t want to spend too much money on it. At least, it may be the best choice for us who will try to use it only one month.
But honestly, it was a quite big challenge to me. Most of my undergraduate lectures with bad performance are about mathematics and physics, engineering or programming. I’m really afraid of dealing with the numbers (although physics can be one of my favourite subjects).
About the workshop
Actually this is the first time I use Discord as a group memeber. I just used it as the entrance to Midjourney. I found it was really convenient for community members to chat with each other and it offered a great privacy protection to users.
At the Day 1, Mr. Matsui asked us to fill in blanks of a sheet. The sheet was combined with 9 questions which can help you clarify the process of persuading others by data instead of language. It’s a new angle to consider about design and persuading.
I think about 3 questions which are around our lives.
Which restaurant to eat for lunch?
What country’s car to buy?
When I travel to Fujisan, which kind of souvenir should I choose?
Finally I chose the first one for it was the most close to our daily life in Sumida Satellite Campus. I can do the research easily (but actually not) by myself.
About the research
The origin of research theme
In fact, I had thought about my lunch in Chiba U. since the first workshop in the Top-D Programme, which is taught by Nakamori Daiki. It was a little shock for me to hear that it was only 50 minutes for noon rest. From that on, I always had trouble about choosing the restaurant for lunch. Most of my classmates choose to buy salad/bento from 711 nearby the campus. I found that when you open your Google Map and tap on the button 'food', you can find almost every information but the time it will take you for lunch. So I want to do a research of lunch food for Sumida’s students. In the research, I’d like to explore the restaurant around the Sumida Satellite Campus. Through discovering the time someone spend on the meal in the restaurant, the research will offer one more index for you to choose your lunch.
About the research subjects
To find out the time spend on lunch, I divided the time into three parts: the time for the eaters to decide order, the time for restaurant to serve the dish and the average time for the eaters to eat the dish. I made use of the stopwatch in the smartphone and measured the real time spent in restaurants.
About the data from field works and its visualization
For data visualization, the amount of data is too little to draw anything by R. So I add some fake data to the database and form a larger database.
With the bar chart, the students can clearly make a appropriate choice for lunch. You can find out which dishes spends less time or which restaurant serve the dishes faster.
About programming to generate bar chart
> data <- read.csv("C:/Users/Lenovo/Downloads/What to have for lunch - Mixed data (1).csv", header = TRUE)
> View(data)
> library(ggplot2)
>
> ggplot(data, aes(x = Dishes, y = `Time Sum (mins)`, fill = Restaurant)) +
+ geom_bar(stat = "identity", position = "dodge") +
+ labs(x = "菜品", y = "总时间（分钟）", title = "各餐厅菜品总时间对比") +
+ theme_minimal() +
+ theme(axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 45, hjust = 1))
Actually I'm so bad on dealing with the numbers so I let ChatGPT help me program these stuff and fix the errors.
Two Questions towards data and AI&Design
The data was made by who and the data was used for what?
As many people have said, humans in modern society have been kidnapped by data. Many people rely on data to plan their lives. This is of course a relaxing thing, because the data itself is accurate and does not give ambiguous answers. However, this data is usually provided by large technology companies. We are guided by this data, and we can also be regarded as being guided by these companies into the scenarios they plan. I think this is a phenomenon worth reflecting on.
Reconsider the necessity for designers to master programming
Nowadays, AI really provides new solutions for people who are not good at doing certain things, especially those working in science and engineering. At this time, I thought, for designers, do they still need to fully master programming skills? In the company's digital product development process, I believe that there will be engineers to complete the construction of the product, and designers, as front-end work, can completely rely on AI tools to complete simple verification work. Of course, I don’t think designers can forget about programming, because even if AI tools are used for programming, basic knowledge of programming and computers is still necessary.
Conclusion
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Q8FrtE5j1wlQHFYg8YXNSgMWILK_CCgD?usp=drive_link
You can check my presentation slides and database through the link.
Thanks for ChatGPT who help me finish the task just in the eve before final presentation.
Thanks for Matsui Minoru Ph.D. who introduce me a new tool which can be very helpful to research data and bring us a brand new horizon about persuading and design. What's more, Mr. Matsui helps me realize how can Google Drive and Discord be useful and convenient.
Thanks for our TA (Teaching Assistant). She really helped me a lot when I was late for the lecture.
Thanks for Note. It is such a great platform for creators.
Thanks for Osanai Karin who is my loved actress. I can work for a whole day with her photos (of course I need to drink and eat).
I hope I will update this blog with more details and upload new blogs in my account.