Chapter 11 Notes and Comments

I approve of Johnson-Sheehan's approach to graphics. It seems very simple, but so many projects I've seen fail to use graphics adequately to explain themselves, and only succeed in detracting from the text.

The majority of the chapter is a simple review of 2nd Grade visual mathematics, but given that for almost all of us 2nd grade was decades ago, it makes sense to include a simple description of what graphs are needed for certain bodies of statistics. The ethics of graphs, such as including all pertinent data and actually labeling axes (Al Gore, are you paying attention?) drew my attention.

Then we have pictures. Again, too often pictures do not accurately represent what the text is explaining, or detracts from the interaction. A key piece of information I think should have been included is to ensure that references to graphics of any kind should be included on the same page as the graphic. Otherwise, the reader can get amazingly confused flipping back and forth within a document. Would you reprint the graphic if it were used on several pages? Also, a more thorough explanation of the rules of photographing objects and people, especially using the rule of thirds, would have been more useful.

Overall, I think the biggest thing to remember is that graphics work best when they mesh with the text, not when they replace the text. Dan, I guess Tufte might have a point.