Reading 1 Responses

“Data Ink and Graphical Redesign” by Edward Tufte
In this essay, Tufte makes an argument for the calculated usage of “data-ink” or meaningful graphics when visualizing information.  I agree that often “useless-ink” detracts from the most important part of data visualization: visualizing data. However, it seems difficult to be dogmatic about this practice since there could be circumstances in which other elements take precedence over or supplement the information. A compelling argument against his rule might be when the impact or emotion certain information might be weighted over the actual data itself.

“The Database as System and Cultural Form” by Christine Paul
This essay touches upon the history of databases and the representation of their contents. The area of this essay that I found most interesting was that the previous methods of conveying information haven’t been lost, there is now just a more radical distinction between representation and information. As the author asserts, previous generations passed down information orally, which seems like a much more natural way of conveying it rather than displaying the same stories in text via a web browser.

Although the paint brushes and inscribed anecdotes that have re-imagined the spoken word  for millennia appears distant and antiquated, little has changed in the visual translation of the same story that resides as memory in a database through code. It seems only natural that in order to envision the exponentially growing wealth of data, we turn to iterative tools that can adaquetly process them. The data remains the same, only our methods of conveying it have altered. Creativity and expression exist in the translation of information, not the medium that they are conveyed through.