I found the train time table example to be interesting because in my own experience, I sometimes get confused by how to navigate them - like when looking at the commuter rail schedule, or when I’m at the train station, and trying to figure out which direction is a train is going with high stakes, since they often are going in opposite directions. The redesigned example, even though in my opinion, is no more aesthetically pleasing than the “bad” example, at the very least does a better job of differentiating if the train is going to New York or New Haven by having it in two different places (as a title, and then as a column header), and the arrow between the two locations is a nice visual, non-verbal indicator of directionality, too.

I found it interesting that Tufte brought up another dance visualization as an example. I don’t personally dance but I have a lot of friends who dance, and also have family friends who are professional dancers and they do not use any dance notation (dance notation is primarily just for documentation) and still rely on learning and teaching dance from live choreo and doing by example. This brings up the question, what are the limits of the use of visual documentation?