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Figure 2.1: JapaneseMap from Edward Tufte’s “Envisioning Information”
Edward Tufte, a statistician and cognitive scientist, wrote lengthily about map design when
explaining his escaping flatland theory in his book Envisioning Information (1990). Tufte talks
about how information design must escape the two dimensional (flat) paper and computer
screen where the information are normally displayed upon. In one example, Tufte discusses
the way a Japanese map switches perspective to enhance understanding, where the
perspective view of the landmark is different from the perspective view of the entire island.
2.2.3.2 Timeline
A timeline is a way of graphically display a certain event progressing in time, mostly in
chronological order. Typically, a timeline features a long bar divided by certain time unit,
with the scale depending on the type of data. For communication purpose, timelines are
mostly linear, and the distance between units are often equal. Some timelines use
logarithmic scale to depict time, with the unit increase exponentially, mostly used when the
scope is very large such as a timeline that depicts various prehistoric ages spanning several
millions of years.
