tufte envisioning designing_data
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Mr Tufte Classic on Data VisualizationTRANSCRIPT
Edward TufteEnvisioning & Designing Data
A Fair Warning
Edward Tufte• Born 1942
• Yale University
• Data visualization and information design
Edward Tufte, Envisioning Information
"The world is complex, dynamic, multidimensional; the paper is static, flat. How are we to represent the rich visual world of experience and measurement on mere flatland?"
Flatlands• Design Metaphor
• To present data well, “escape” the flatlands to higher dimensions.
• Not simply a matter of 3D design
Edward Tufte, Envisioning Information
"Escaping this flatland is the essential task of envisioning information - for all the interesting worlds (physical, biological, imaginary, human) that we seek to understand are inevitably and happily multivariate in nature. Not flatlands."
Suddenly, perspective
Micro/Macro Readings• Multiple time scales of information
• A larger story that invites exploration
• We have to go deeper
Layering & Separation• Confusion and clutter are failures of design, not attribution of
information
• Reduce noise by visual distinction between data via shape, size, etc.
• Google maps has geography and road maps
What’s wrong with this design?
Reduce clutter by removing implicit data (e.g. Name)
Edward Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
“The interior decoration of graphics generates a lot of ink that does not tell the viewer anything new. The purpose of decoration varies — to make the graphic appear more scientific and precise, to enliven the display, to give the designer an opportunity to exercise artistic skills. Regardless of its cause, it is all non-data-ink or redundant data-ink, and it is often chartjunk.”
Chartjunk• Tested by the “Ink-Data Ratio”. How much data is represented versus
ink (or pixels) used?
Don’t Decorate
...or at least don’t decorate first
At one point, this was preferred
Sparklines
Narrative of Space & Time• Time-series data
• Add spatial dimensions
• Reduce the complexity of data down to the core “point”
The Greatest Statistical Chart Ever Made
Napoleon’s march and retreat (Minard 1869)
What info matters for a subway trip?
Video link for later: PowerPoint is Evil
PowerPoint is Evil