tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87966401691734648362011-04-21T18:31:41.216-07:00Ben Root's take on data visualization, web development, drupal, and more.Bennoreply@blogger.comBlogger11100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8796640169173464836.post-86722380824062191172008-12-10T11:11:00.000-08:002008-12-10T11:41:51.102-08:00New Bart Sign:<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Ct9EhFvAhzk/SUAUnB8j5AI/AAAAAAAAAPM/kiSVDKClz_o/s1600-h/after_small.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 250px; height: 95px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Ct9EhFvAhzk/SUAUnB8j5AI/AAAAAAAAAPM/kiSVDKClz_o/s400/after_small.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5278241424048120834" border="0" /></a>Before (photoshopped to show old display):<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Ct9EhFvAhzk/SUAU0-8NNmI/AAAAAAAAAPU/I6-IU15ohbw/s1600-h/before_small.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 250px; height: 95px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Ct9EhFvAhzk/SUAU0-8NNmI/AAAAAAAAAPU/I6-IU15ohbw/s400/before_small.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5278241663759496802" border="0" /></a><br />Electronic signs in <a href="http://bart.gov/">BART</a> (Bay Area Rapid Transit) received a quiet upgrade earlier this month. The new display format significantly increases the "data-to-ink" ratio of the signs. The data-to-ink ratio is a term coined by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Tufte">Edward Tufte</a> which describes how much ink (or pixels) is used to represent each data point in a chart. The greater the data/ink ratio the less ink (or screen real estate) is spent conveying each data point and the more information can be shown on each page.<br /><br />As you can see, the new display shows estimated arrival times of the next 2 trains in roughly the same space as the old display showed a single train.That is a 2X improvement of the data-to-ink ratio, way to go BART! This seems to be the first major change since the <a href="http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_/ai_55898347">arrival time estimations went live in 1999</a>.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8796640169173464836-8672238082406219117?l=consultben.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Bennoreply@blogger.com0