Reimagined: 3 Attempts to Reimagining a Graphical Timetable

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In the last post, I have written about graphical timetables inspired by Edward Tufte's works. In this post, I will make 3 attempts to reimagine the graphical timetable pictured above. My discussion on this graphical timetable with its 2 previous versions can be found in the last post. The reimagination is done using Tableau which you can find here. My attempts are more for exploration than a suggestion as to what graphical timetables shall be on my local public transport brochures. For ease of data collection, I have adjusted the timings for my reimagined versions.


1. Reimagined with Stem and Leaf Plot


Inspired by stem and leaf plots collected by Tufte in his book and my previous tutorial on the chart, I have decided to try a version of it. Each day is in a column without breaking the days up. Colours represent the frequency of buses in the hour. Perhaps, this version is a little too heavy on the text and lacks whitespaces due to the vertical format.


2. Reimagined with Bubble Timeline / Heat Map

Like the one on top, the colours represent the bus frequency within the hour and it is further amplified by the size of the circles. There are whitespaces in this one, but there is a lack of accurate timings being displayed. Aesthetically, this is similar to the existing version in times of timeline, except the stacked bar chart has been replaced with circles.


3. Reimagined with Radial/ Curved Dotted Time Series

At first glance, this design deviates the most from the original, but from another angle, this is just the timeline being curved. Each circle or bubble is at the hour mark on a 12-hour clock face. The users may find the frequency of buses within the hour by following the hour mark. Due to the bus service not being run 24-hour, there are blank spaces on the chart that make it look incomplete. However, this is the most fun design-wise for me.


All in all, it has been to re-look at the graphical timetable and reimagine what it can look like with concepts leant over my journey of data viz exploration. Nonetheless, I think we need to consider the general audience using the bus services and the possibility of them accepting different designs.