Envisioning Information, Chapter 1 - Edward Tufte

I really enjoyed this reading because to the wide variety of examples of information design, although I did find that some were far more successful than others (and Tufte didn’t really talk much about the limitations or shortcomings of some of the designs). I found some of the examples to be very confusing, such as the graphic timetable for a Java railroad line (way too much information at once), the sunspots diagram, and the Japanese travel guide (I didn’t understand the transition/connection to the right hand side). For a lot of these examples, especially the ones I found less successful, I wondered who the intended audience of the design is. For example, for the train timetable, is this for train operators who need all this information and look at this diagram all the time? Or is it for passengers, who need specific information quickly, who would be overwhelmed by such a diagram? (In this case, it served as an internal planning document for the Java Railroad, which makes a lot more sense).

Some of the examples I found more successful are the periodic table (the clear organization of elements into group, including several pieces of information on each element), the art of dancing page (combining four dimensions: the flatland of floor, coded gestures in dance notation of body motion, and time sequence), and the weather map of Japan (the symbols and drawings make this design very effective, but there is a clear limitation here in terms of dimension of the country/geography).