Reading Response#2 (Escaping Flatland)

I was having trouble reading this chapter “Escaping Flatland” from the book Envisioning Information by Tufte. I love many of the examples explained in this chapter but, I felt it was to brief, and that the author was jumping around with his explanations. I like the example of the periodic table of chemical elements that uses the shape of the triangle which divides the elements into Noble Gases and other metals. Looking at some of the examples of good information design, I can not tell many times when certain elements are used as chart junk. I still have a lot to learn about information design and how to use it in a creative form.

From reading “Escaping Flat” from Envisioning Information by Tufte, I have learned that it is important to know how to use perspective to make information design more desirable to your clients. Many of the mediums that information designers use on two dimensional surfaces are paper, magazines, and mostly on computer screens. Technology from the 1600’s until now has helped people to make a diagram from a three dimensional view to a flat piece of paper, which is easier to make. However, there are still problems for viewers to understand what information a diagram is trying to show and its accuracy.

The reading was very confusing for me. It seems like it starts out with one topic and then moves on to another subject without some form of transitions. This confused me a lot when, I would try to understand a certain subject in this chapter of “Escaping Flatland.” I see how simple technology like a telescope in the 1600’s from Galileo helped him to make a simple diagram of the sun and its changes. Computers have made it easier for us to design good diagrams but, we still have the same problem on communicating the information to the audience as we did in the past.