Most of all I think this chapter helped me think about the ways that the organization of data can sometimes make it harder to navigate. Especially with gridlines that are meant to delineate different categories, I see how only implying them or being very subtle with them is effective if using the ways humans naturally group things together.

The only time it didn’t feel as impactful was with the marshaling signals example. I agree the bottom one looks better, but I really don’t think the first design had any hindrances to understanding it. I think the bottom design did make it more visually attractive, but didn’t make any of the information any more clear. In comparison I think the statistical graph example right after is a good example of this consideration because there actually needs to be comparison between the data boxes. You wouldn’t need to compare between different signals, so I think the thick lines are unnecessary but also not harmful in the orignal.