Reading Response Week 2

Stephen Few

This essay focuses on communication information with appropriate visualization methods. I found this resource to be extremely helpful.  Although there are often obvious choices of graphs that you’d use for certain types of data, its still becomes difficult to refine one that appropriately conveys the information. The examples seem trivial, but by tailoring basic elements to match what you intend to convey, the end results are greatly enhanced.

Tidwell

In this reading, Tidwell delineates the principles for effective visualizations for interactivity  and usability.  All of the concepts the author talks about have all point to a main rule: make it intuitive. Although this might seem obvious, Tidwell elaborates on unique areas that enhance how a user interacts with a visualization. This article immediately made me think back to our class discussion regarding Jonathan Harris’ piece “Whale Hunt”.  The user interface he created seemed to be lacking because it was designed for him, not for the user.  The emotion was almost obscured by the ambiguity of the controls a user is presented with. For me, this detracted from the intensity of the actual content, his photographic journey.