Tufte gave valuable insights into how designers can escape the limitations of flat displays. He shared examples of data stories that expressed multiple dimensions on a simple plane, such as newspapers or reports. My favorite example is the criminal activity chart supplied by counsel. I am not sure if I want to call this a chart, though, as it is a table. Tables are the best representation of data with multiple dimensions and could give so much information in just one glance. They also invite users to read them horizontally and vertically. However, one problem with tables is scale. When there are multiple rows, there is a need for aggregate views that are provided through other types of charts such as bar or pie charts.

There is one point that I can’t entirely agree with Tufte about. It’s his strong position against “chartjunk”. To the author, adding irrelevant visuals to charts that do not represent data is distracting and disrespectful to viewers. He gave an example of the “Diamond were a girls best fired chart”. To be honest, it was one of my favorite charts in that chapter! I loved the story, the play with curves, and the title! I feel it is disrespectful to call such effort “junk!” Data stories are visual, and it’s wise to blend in different representations. One side represents the data, and the other side is representative of the context or culture. This makes the design space much more creative and enjoyable!