Postgraduate / Master's · Data Science
Data Visualisation
What is it
Postgraduate data visualisation covers the theory of visual perception and cognition as applied to communicating complex, high-dimensional data honestly and effectively — including the research literature on what makes visualisations genuinely informative versus merely persuasive or misleading.
Why it matters
A visualisation can be technically accurate while still being deeply misleading through choices like truncated axes, misleading colour scales, or inappropriate chart types — understanding the cognitive science behind visual perception is what allows a researcher to communicate findings honestly rather than accidentally (or deliberately) distorting them.
Exam tip
When designing a visualisation for a research audience, always ask what specific comparison or relationship you want the viewer to perceive, and choose the chart type and encoding that makes that comparison as perceptually direct as possible — a beautiful but poorly chosen chart type can actively obscure the finding it's meant to communicate.
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