Dear David,
While the comments on Edward Tufte in your Communication Research
Institute review of Visual Explanations are correct, it seems to me that
the argument on a single book doesn't reduce the value of this entire
body of work. While Tufte has indeed mastered the art of book
production, much of the advice within his beautifully produced books
applies to other media. Designers can easily apply Tufte's useful
heuristics and guidelines to work in many fields, and they do help
people working under time pressure.
Some pages in Visual Explanations could be better planned from an
information design perspective. As you note, however, the book is not
always an example of information design -- it is also a museum.
Would anyone claim that Tufte is THE authority on designing information
graphics to represent quantitative data? Probably not. Tufte himself
never made the claim. I have the sense that he represents himself as a
statistician and political scientist who works with graphic information.
His formal title at Yale is Professor Emeritus of Political Science,
Computer Science, and Statistics and Senior Critic in Graphic Design.
(My earlier note incorrectly accorded him emeritus status in graphic
design. His third field is computer science. His design title is senior
critic.) It was Martin Kemp, professor of art history at Oxford, who
lauded Tufte as THE authority on the subject, describing him in Nature
as "the world's leading analyst of graphic information" (Kemp 2006).
My claim is more modest. I state that Tufte makes a major contribution
to the field, focusing attention on key issues while advancing a public
inquiry that moves the field forward.
While Tufte's The Visual Display of Quantitative Information (1983)
propelled him to a public fame rarely achieved by statistics professors,
his own goal is understanding the way that information works and
developing principles for better information. He approaches information
design with scientific rigor that enables the discovery and application
of broad, general principles in contrast with the cookbook approach too
often typical of design books or the formalist approach that often
typifies graphic design courses.
Many would argue that Tufte approaches design using the analytic
principles of science and computing as a rigorous thinker who respects
the power of design and design tools more than many designers do. He
also brings such design tools as typography, color, visualization, and
formatting to scientific data. Tufte joins you -- and me -- in the
belief that the tools of graphic design are important to human knowledge
and decision-making. His mission is understanding how these tools can be
put to best use.
Each of Tufte's major books has a different conceptual goal. According
to Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information (1983) is about
pictures of numbers. Envisioning Information (1990) is about pictures of
nouns because maps, or aerial photographs show nouns lying on the
ground. You reviewed his third book, Visual Explanations: Images and
Quantities Evidence and Narrative (1997). For Tufte, this book is about
pictures of verbs: graphs and models that show motion, dynamic systems,
mechanics, and processes. The crucial answer to Arden's query involves
the 1983 book, though some information in the other books helps.
In some respects, your critique is quite reasonable. Each book is richly
illustrated with the information artifacts that Tufte describes. Since
one might expect each book to serve as a model of the principles it
presents, pages present a problem when they fail to do so. Even so,
Tufte’s books offer concise summaries of the principles that he has
developed in studying information artifacts.
In respect of Arden's query, for example, The Visual Display of
Quantitative Information offers nine points that summarize principles
for communicating complex ideas clearly, precisely, and efficiently.
According to Tufte, excellent statistical graphs show the data they
represetechnology. They do not distort the data through the content or visual
presentation of the graph. They present many numbers in a small space.
They make large data sets coherent. They encourage visual comparison of
different pieces of data. They reveal data at several levels of detail,
giving a broad overview while offering fine structure. They serve a
clear purpose; describing, exploring, tabulating, or -- occasionally --
decorating. They are closely integrated with the statistical and verbal
descriptions of the data set they present.
Tufte’s vision of excellence involves revealing relationships among
data, among the factors that the data represent, and among the concepts
that human beings can used to explore them. The concise, elegant
presentation of significant relationships is core principle of Tufte’s
thinking. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information demonstrates
how to achieve it and what to avoid. I'd argue that this book, at least,
meets the criteria at the heart of your critique of his later book.
Tufte is not all that far away from you in what he seeks. Using
intelligent technique to present information well is the core issue of
Envisioning Information. "Confusion and clutter are failures of design,
not attributes of information," Tufte states, "And so the point is to
find design strategies that reveal detail and complexity, rather than to
fault the data for an excess of complication." Tufte’s designer is a
thinker and a strategist.
Despite his occasional lapses, thinking lies at the heart of Visual
Explanations. Thinking and explanation require us to understand and
describe change. To explain much of what happens in the world, we must
explain the dynamic relationships among the elements of any system, and
we must understand the nature of causes and their effects. "To
understand," Tufte writes, "is to know what cause provokes what effect,
by what means, at what rate." This book is about how that knowledge
should be represented.
Representing knowledge through information design is the heart of
Tufte’s work. He explores how we should represent what we know to
help others know and understand it. In so doing, he establishes a clear
goal for design: using the science and art of representation to generate
knowledge and insight. By contributing to better information artifacts,
in print and on the Web, Edward Tufte’s work makes the information age
more informative by adapting information more effectively to the needs
of information users.
Could someone do better? Yes indeed, and partly by standing on Edward
Tufte's shoulders. If someone can do better, I'm ready to read their
book and learn.
Warm wishes,
Ken
Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS
Professor
Dean
Swinburne Design
Swinburne University of Technology
Melbourne, Australia
--
Reference
Kemp, Martin. 2006. "Science in Culture." Nature, Vol. 442, p. 140 (13
July 2006).
--
David Sless wrote:
BTW, not everyone thinks Tufte is THE authority on the subject. See my
review:
http://communication.org.au/modules/smartsection/item.php?itemid=52
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