I was sad about the Tufte example because it looks really interesting and didn't get the much treatment about the trade offs to density (I'm sure Tufte went in to all of it extensively even if he came down on one side). I suppose the author didn't consider it relevant.

Those little + make the left graph much more expert user friendly. A chemist isn't looking at the graph to see that there are peaks (they know that, they're chemists), they want to find actual points on the line and the + are enabling a level of eyeballing on the low-density graph that isn't possible on the right.

If I'm a heavy graph user, I want the low density one. The high density one isn't for daily use - it is for appreciating as a one-off or learning about periodicity of elements.

If a chemist wants to look at the actual point values, wouldn't a reference table be more useful and precise?

Dunno, I'm no chemist. But it is easier to eyeball min/max/derivative from a graph and compare regions. Maybe one of those properties is important.

Sure but, in my opinion, you can tell all of those in both plots. The crossmarks are not even needed.

Is your opinion an opinion of the "that's just like, my opinion man" or of the lawyer's style? Because I've yet to read a book on typography or see statistical data presentation that suggested going in without horizontal guides for the eye.

Tufte's minimalist graph is much better if it is meant to tell a story or be shown to an unsophisticated audience. But if someone wants to actually refer to the data on a regular basis some guides are a much better approach that will cut down on stupid mistakes. Eyes aren't very good at scanning over blank space without drifting.

And on mobile those are stacked so left and right don’t make sense…

oh, you're totally right. good catch! i'll fix it in a minute.

Thank you for the write-up! I also caught a small typo:

> You can form an opinion about the density of these websites simply by looking at an image for a franction of a second.

fixed that one too! thanks!