Tufte:

I agreed with most of his design points for maps, although I did face points of confusion. Particularly, in his points with computer windows, he described yellow as the only suitable color. However, computers today have no border color, and in the past I believe Windows systems used blue (?). I wonder what influenced companies to reduce color from their UI, and if that trend will continue.

Second, I had a bit of confusion with his fourth design point. I did not understand what he meant, and the examples he chose did not display the point completely, in my opinion. To get this idea better, I wish I saw an example of non-intertwined maps.

Other than that, his points made sense to me and pointed out aspects of good maps that I had not formalized beforehand.

ChartJunk:

This study condensed into words my sentiments from the previous class. The author had a moderate viewpoint and objectively weighed the pros and cons of graphics in data representation. I agree with his three points about the merits of graphics, but also with his definition of chartjunk. He doesn’t define in strict terms what constitutes as chartjunk, but describes a general characteristic, where readers can define their own thresholds for what constitutes as unacceptable.