Micro/Macro Readings & Layering and Separation

Tufte had a lot of valuable advice on how to organize information, from letting freestanding elements become grid patterns to ways of achieving contrast, but I felt his views on Micro/Macro Readings were a bit debatable. His statement of “Simplicity of reading derives from the context of detailed and complex information, properly arranged,” is beautifully put, but even after reading his justification, I disagree with “to clarify, add detail.” I think that statement can be taken too far, too fast, and should only be used in moderation. But I guess it is true that most things should only be experienced in moderation.

The amount of detail in the Vietnam Veterans Memorial works wonderfully because detail is not explained in mark making but how the marks are arranged. I think other information design like the Electrical Resistivity of Copper, Gold, Palladium, and Silver and The Japanese National Railroad had too many marks for one display. The Japanese National Railroad operation diagram made no sense to me, mainly because I am not part of the proper discourse community, but all those lines would give me a headache if I had to look at them all day long. Majority of the numbers blend in with the lines as well. Maybe it was because the map was shrunk for purposes of the publication, but is it really necessary for all those lines on one page? Maybe the grid could be split up on transparent pages so information could be seen separately or as a whole.

Whenever I think of a successful map, I immediately think of Harry Beck’s London Underground Railway map. Beck does not display any geographical elements on his map because popular vote declared while riding the railway people just want to get from one stop to the other and want to know how many stops are in between. Riders of the system did not care how many streets they passed or what rivers were nearby. Beck chooses to include the essential detail to make it easy to read at a glance for every rider. Even reading Tufte’s article was easy to read because text was only in blocks 4.5 inches wide and was divided by pictures to give your eyes a break. I am much more enthused to look at information with some breathing space then for example reading a page with eight inch wide text blocks, in type size six point and small kerning. This same idea applies to visual information as well.