Thursday, April 17, 2008
Lab 9 was great to make. I really like the power of being able to link to separate movies. It opens up design ideas like crazy. I also think the preloader is a useful tool. I have given it a secure place in my tool box.
I have been looking out on the net for cartograms and I have found a cool website: Cartogram Central it is funded by the USGS so its pretty reputable. There is a really cool cartogram that is using some type of animation on the bottom of the page of cartogram examples. Here is the link . I think it would be cool to try and shape tween a map into a cartogram. At this stage it would have to be a pretty simple one, but I may give it a try.
I have enjoyed the Tufte articles. I agree very much with the idea that less is better. I like the idea of ink being for data and everything else should be at a minimum. People seem to like the deluge of the senses available in this very graphic age, but I still think that a well balanced display using minimal color is better. I really like Minard's maps in black and brown. The brown, of all colors, jumps off the page.
I do think that his Napoleon map would benefit from a Russian country outline in the background, although it might really overwhelm the density factor. I do not know Russian geography and so it would anchor it a little better for me. On the other hand I can always pull out an atlas and have a look. I wonder who the audience was for the map? If it was military historians they probably wouldn't need a map in the background.
My favorite quote "A table is nearly always better than a dumb pie chart: the only worse design than a pie chart is several of them..." Yeah! I am jumping up and down in agreement. The only pie chart that I have ever thought useful is the one on my computer which shows me how much disk space has been used on my memory disk/stick/whatever it's measuring. The reason I think it is effective is because it is only measuring one thing and it's a volume, kind of like a pie. Having several values represented in this way I think is useless. Population is not a volume. It just doesn't translate to me very well. Not that I have a better solution, but I have thought this for a long time. Any time I do see pie charts I ignore them and move on to whatever else is there to see, and if pie charts are obscuring things like areas on a map I move on to the text or just plain move on.
I have been looking out on the net for cartograms and I have found a cool website: Cartogram Central it is funded by the USGS so its pretty reputable. There is a really cool cartogram that is using some type of animation on the bottom of the page of cartogram examples. Here is the link . I think it would be cool to try and shape tween a map into a cartogram. At this stage it would have to be a pretty simple one, but I may give it a try.
I have enjoyed the Tufte articles. I agree very much with the idea that less is better. I like the idea of ink being for data and everything else should be at a minimum. People seem to like the deluge of the senses available in this very graphic age, but I still think that a well balanced display using minimal color is better. I really like Minard's maps in black and brown. The brown, of all colors, jumps off the page.
I do think that his Napoleon map would benefit from a Russian country outline in the background, although it might really overwhelm the density factor. I do not know Russian geography and so it would anchor it a little better for me. On the other hand I can always pull out an atlas and have a look. I wonder who the audience was for the map? If it was military historians they probably wouldn't need a map in the background.
My favorite quote "A table is nearly always better than a dumb pie chart: the only worse design than a pie chart is several of them..." Yeah! I am jumping up and down in agreement. The only pie chart that I have ever thought useful is the one on my computer which shows me how much disk space has been used on my memory disk/stick/whatever it's measuring. The reason I think it is effective is because it is only measuring one thing and it's a volume, kind of like a pie. Having several values represented in this way I think is useless. Population is not a volume. It just doesn't translate to me very well. Not that I have a better solution, but I have thought this for a long time. Any time I do see pie charts I ignore them and move on to whatever else is there to see, and if pie charts are obscuring things like areas on a map I move on to the text or just plain move on.
// posted by Elizabeth Hull @ 7:11 AM 
