anneconnell

p. 17-20, Visual Display of Quantitative Information

Cancer Maps

We can accommodate this level of information because it is simplified and there is a map that is generally interactive.

The super-graphic is necessary to do in one “slide” for absorption

General spatial comparisons have to happen vs. temporal ones (that take 16 slides) for effectiveness

Resolution is important for spatial adjacency

Pg. 120-121, Visual Explanations

Simple explanation to this that cannot be conveyed enough: words are better than charts sometimes as in this example by Soloman Rushdie. Nothing else to be said. Tufte, himself, attempted a graphic to describe the passage, and admitted it fails miserably.

Pg. 56, 57, Envisioning Information

Micro-level data summed up at macor-relay to overall problem (Macro/Micro theme)

Supergraphic – needs 5 or 6 of these to use in any presentation as artifacts to show what the work is about

Bring real artifacts into the room

Bring something actual to help convey the message/information you really want to discuss

It is all about the content

Everything interacts

Two dots make three interactions

Any optical intensity or unecessary elements clutters information — strip them out and include only what is necessary

Funny fact: the term “users” is used by two industries — drugs and computers (credit to Sam Zaisss – use “readers” instead)

Local optimizing leads to global pessimizing (“this is the way in which the world will end, I promise you”)

pg. 175-176, Beautiful Evidence

Cancer survival rates example

Put numbers in substantial order

Every table should be placed in numerical order or by performance

Why are we so ready to CLUTTER?

De-clutter!

Apple Design process: “we don’t do focus groups, we rely on proven, actual performance”, e.g. performance of displays

Analytical design – cancer survival rate constituted 18 million pages of a Google search

More reliable: performance in the wild

Successful performances in the real world about showing lots of info: WSJ, NYT, GoogleNews, 300/400 links on home v. the ‘7′ link standard

Performance can be understood by anyone, look at sports charts

“Performance in the wild”, is s solved problem and does not need to be tested

You can have your own opinions but you cannot have your own facts

Find excellent examples and count them

No more 7 links per page

“Talent stimulates but genius steals” — T.S. Elliott

In the making of reports (non-fiction reports, that is), do good reporting and report once a week even if there isn’t anything new to say

We are all at our smartest at 24-30″ away, staring at a wall chart. We are at our dumbest at 20′ away looking at low-res slides. This is all about resolution!

I’ll give you an example – I (Tufte, obviously) consulted on the Space Shuttle Columbia explosion (hole the size of a basketball in the wing), Boeing prepared 28 slides and they sucked

They knew there was a problem and screwed up the analysis

The effort was on the “Return to Flight”, 2 million dollars are spent on analyzing the HVAC problem

What you need is a “High Resolution Data Dump”, which will be followed up by questions to allow for localiazation and provoke thinking, as well as go home and think about it even more as the people in the audience can read faster than you are talking. Always.

Paper is running 10x the amount the amount of resolution on the screen.

pg. 16, Envisioning Information

Euclid’s Geometry is an example of “drop-laying” information – this model is 440 years old — a 3D model – that also brings in a scaled model in his test

We want them thinking about content all the time and the presentation is seemless

pg. 120, Beautiful Evidence

Napolean’s march – we make comparisons to show 3 or more dimensions/variables:

• size of army
• location
• direction
• temps
• dates

If you follow this model and its strategy for display, you will be able to absorb in 30% less the amount of time it takes to grasp the concepts

pg. 18-19, Envisioning Information

EI Galileo’s sun spots model, took 40 days of observation to reconstruct the weather on the sun

A student once contacted him for the translation of the text in order to get a tattoo of Galileo’s quote proving that the earth was round

pg. 30, John Gotti

“No matter how beautiful UI is, it would be better if there is less of it.

pg. 146,147 Visual Explanations

EI Galileo’s Think more about the user screen real estate for screen than for print.  Hand-held devices even more so.  The droid phone has the highest resolution today, but “remember and type”, then the UI from XPARC happened and changed everything to “point and click”, and mapped this to natural user interfaces.  Tufte says he often “claws at his screen” in a reference to gestural user interfaces and sees this as our near future. He believes this will clarify and add detail.

pg. 46, 47 Beautiful Evidence

Graphics are no longer a special occasion, they are integrated

pg. 54, 55 Some divisions it is all over by June 3rd in the example of the Wayfields

pg. 158

Use word to describe this? No. What? Use InDesign?

How to proceed? Give it to them spot-on to go where they need to go

We never want to attract attention to our method of production, have them reading in the room where you have them

Have a tighter, more efficient meeting, have everyone engaged and all about the content

Get better content and limit yourself to four pages, this will reduce the “ummm” talk

Show up early for your presentation – 1 in 20 you’ll head off a problem and finish on time.

To which, Tufte finishes his talk at exactly 4pm and left the room, exactly at the time it was supposed to end.

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