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My Edward Tufte Reflections

The following summary contains my reflections on the Edward Tufte seminar I attended in June of 2008 at the Seattle Westin. Most of the value of what I learned can be applied to data charts and graphics we could create/revise to supplement and enrich the content on any web site that presents data.

The title of this course was “Presenting Data and Information”, and that’s exactly what we learned about. The instructor, Edward Tufte, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Statistics, and Computer Science at Yale University, is passionate about data, charts, and graphics, and he sought to instill within all of us a higher standard for communicating more interesting, complex, and “beautiful” representations of content.

“The world is complex, dynamic, multidimensional; the paper is static, flat.”

That is the introductory sentence in one of the four books I received as part of the course, entitled Envisioning Information, where Edward Tufte (“ET”, as he refers to himself) guides us in “escaping from flatland”. The other three books included were The Visual Display of Quantitative Information; Visual Explanations; and Beautiful Evidence. I would be happy to share these books with anyone who’s interested.

I arrived earlier than most people to the seminar, and as a result, I had the opportunity to speak with ET as he was going around to each of the early birds in the first few rows and autographing copies of Beautiful Evidence, his latest book. “Where do you work? What do you do?” was the standard introduction given at each encounter, followed by an overview of the reading assignment. I told him I owned a web design company, which seemed to have piqued his interest more than any of the others whom he had queried, at least within earshot, as he then engaged in a bit of dialogue with me.

He asked me at one point if I knew the quote by Alan Cooper, “No matter how beautiful, no matter how cool your interface, it would be better if there were less of it.”

I had not heard the quote, nor of Alan Cooper, but I had studied other designers who are as equally emphatic about simplicity, “Simplicity is the key” I said, to which he replied, in a corrective tone, “Simplicity of design, complexity of information!”

This was fascinating and revelational to me, as it seemed at first to be paradoxical. It also set the tone for the rest of the day. As the course went on, I began to see more clearly how to say more, with proper design, while using less space, and in less time.

Supergraphics

Most of the seminar involved going over the books and looking at “supergraphics”, which were charts that effectively communicated over 20,000 numbers on a single page. One example was from a government health care report detailing the SARS outbreak. Another “supergraphic” was from a French anti-war poster from 1812 showing the fate of Napoleon’s army as it battled in Russia.

For a closer look: http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/posters

ET urged us all to create this level of rich content, which, in turn, will cut the length of all meetings by at least 1/3, “guaranteed!” For cutting edge examples of the best data design, look in “Nature” magazine.

We were taught several guidelines about how to do this:

1. Every chart should provide reasons to believe. Show Causality for the evidence.

2. They should be multivariate, showing 3 or more dimensions of data. (A Pastor may look at it and be drawn to one dimension of the data, where as a Missionary may look and see another dimension that would apply to him)

3. They should evoke an interested response from people. Readers will say, “hmmm!”

4. They should be content driven, not method driven (e.g. don’t try to conform your content to the mode of delivery (i.e. video, powerpoint, etc.). Instead, conform your delivery to the content, using “whatever it takes” be it sentences, graphics, video or visual aids.)

5 Fundamental Grand Principles of Analytical Design:

1. Show Comparisons. – Always ask the question, “Compared to what?”

2. Show Causality – Explain something. “If you want to clarify, add more detail”.

3. Show More than 1 or 2 dimensions of data. All major problems are multivariate. And supergraphics are created to analyze problems.

4. Completely Integrate ALL media – it’s all evidence after all – sentences, images, video, words, numbers, include it all, indifferent to the mode of production

5. Document everything and tell people about it. The data came from somewhere – so say where it came from. Always disclose all the data, – make it available if it can be shown, or have it printed and have copies on hand to show in case someone is interested.

Most designs are “self-conscious, narcissistic, and suffer from poverty of data, showing only 4 numbers at best”. This is a poor reflection cast on the presenter, showing a lack of integrity of character, according to ET. “Thought vs. Pitching” he called it. “Never, ever design for the lowest common denominator, because that means you assume your entire audience is as dumb as the stupidest person in the room!”.

“The audience knows more about the content than the web designer”. This is a problem facing most of the data being presented on the web, according to ET, and therefore valuable information is being suppressed. The focus of graphics cannot be about color schemes or fancy decorations. While color schemes are very important, they do not take precedence over richness of content.

Perhaps the most practical of all the tips he offered was to use the font “Gill Sans” when making data tables.

The second most practical tip was to never use boxes around content. 1+1=3 was the reason: 1 mark, plus another mark = 3 because you have the 2 marks + the white space in between the 2 marks. It makes it more difficult to read.

The Use of PowerPoint

One of his main underlining themes throughout the course was an attack on the use of Microsoft PowerPoint. “Meetings are too authoritarian – PowerPoint causes information deficits!” He reasoned/joked that it would take 10,000 PowerPoint slides to display the data contained in the above supergraphic.

PowerPoint takes the focus away from the content, and puts it on the presentation software, or the Microsoft Corporation, or worse, the presenter himself. The content should be the only focus of the meeting. The software “should be used as a projector OS, nothing more!” ET commanded.

Integrate Everything

“Integrate everything!” ET preached to the crowd of 500 or so statisticians, technical writers, marketing presenters, project managers and designers.

For the past few hundred years, technology has inhibited our ability to integrate text, graphics, videos, photos, etc. because the mode of production of the content dictated how the content would be presented. Images that correspond to the text are often created by different people than the author of the text, and even the printing happens in rooms, in different buildings.

He contrasted this point with a book published by Galileo, (an original printing, hundreds of years old, which he had brought in to show us) which integrated an image and text detailing the discovery of Saturn’s rings. Galileo drew a picture of his discovery right in the midst of the sentence. Current standards would show the most relevant data, the drawing, elsewhere, either in a footnote, or in an appendix at the back of the book.

Interface Design

Another section of the course was devoted to the iPhone. The professor is quite the fan. In fact, he opened the seminar by saying, “Please turn off all cell phones and pagers, with the exception of the iPhone.” ET touted the remarkably designed touch-screen interface with which he could only find one problem: Icons. He would rather have had “words” to click on rather than square icons.

Humans naturally interact by gesturing, so a touch screen interface is a great leap forward. There is virtually no need for a user manual, because it’s so easy to use.

“The iPhone,” predicted ET, “is not a phone; it’s a platform that sets the standard for the next generation of communication and interface design.” I agree.

Tips on Presenting to an Audience

And the final section of the course offered tips on presenting to an audience, whether your speaking to “The Admiral” or an audience of hundreds. I felt this material was relevant to VS work around the world whilst speaking publicly, even though most of it will not be anything new to you guys:

Tips: PowerPoint is solely a projector Operating system; don’t use it to “design” your display of information.

1. Preparation: Rehearsal Improves Performance
   1. Watching a video of your practices will help immensely to see how the audience perceives you.

i. Exposes any embarrassing, unconscious mannerisms

1. 1. Listen to just the audio portion alone after that

i. Helps to weed out any “ums” or run-on sentences

1. Show Up Early
   1. Solves problems that might arise behind the scenes
   2. “beautiful gesture”
2. In Your Introduction
   1. Never apologize – “I’m sorry for the bad ___”
   2. See how long you can go without referring to yourself or your opinions (“I think”) – it’s not about you, it’s a professional presentation about the content
3. Always bring a REAL OBJECT to the presentation; a tangible visual aid that brings reality to your presentation. Pass it around the room, (like he did with Galileo’s book) or make photocopies and pass them out to everyone.
   1. Print out copies of the supergraphics and let people read them… “If they read it before you talk about it…. You’re already a success!”
   2. Good designs should be passed out to the audience in advance of the presentation, allowing them to use their own cognitive abilities to discover the content. Let people look over your charts on paper (which has 10X the resolution of the screen, ET said about twenty times.) It gives them something they can take home.
4. Finish Early