Edward Tufte One-Day Course: What I Learned
Today I had the amazing opportunity to take the one-day course, Presenting Data and Information, by Edward Tufte! I have been using his books as bibles for visualizing information ever since college. Unfortunately I never owned the books myself because everyone else around me who I worked with had them. But, as part of the ticket price to Tufte's course, I was given all four of his books. Though the real highlight of this whole experience was the opportunity to take feverish notes from such a master in this field. Here are a few key takeaways that I got from this course...
- People can get through information on their own. They can use their intellect to find their own relevance in your data. Give your audience more credit and set up a domino relationship with your information so they can glean the jewels from the data.
- Don't underestimate the power of words while visualizing data. Many times they can be much more descriptive and clear than any figure or icon you try and come up with.
- Slide shows are inefficient and boring. Let the viewer see and hold all the data before the presentation.
- The point of information design is to assist in thinking.
- Do whatever it takes to get the information across. Never ask about how you can fit data into a certain format. Ask what the data means. After you have defined it, then decide how to best represent the data. Don't pre specify the visualization method.
- There is beauty in functionality.
- With statistics the ideas is to be approximately right rather than exactly wrong.
- No amount of good design will save poor content.
