What do you think?
Rate this book
Beautiful Evidence
Science and art have in common intense seeing, the wide-eyed observing that generates visual information. Beautiful Evidence is about how seeing turns into showing, how data and evidence turn into explanation. The book identifies excellent and effective methods for showing nearly every kind of information, suggests many new designs (including sparklines), and provides analytical tools for assessing the credibility of evidence presentations (which are seen from both sides: how to produce and how to consume presentations). For alert consumers of presentations, there are chapters on diagnosing evidence corruption and PowerPoint pitches. Beautiful Evidence concludes with two chapters that leave the world of pixel and paper flatland representations - and move onto seeing and thinking in space land, the real-land of three-space and time.
213 pages, Hardcover
First published July 1, 2006
138 people are currently reading
4585 people want to read
About the author
Edward R. Tufte
16 books699 followersEdward Rolf Tufte (born 1942 in Kansas City, Missouri to Virginia and Edward E. Tufte), a professor emeritus of statistics, graphic design, and political economy at Yale University has been described by The New York Times as "the Leonardo da Vinci of Data". He is an expert in the presentation of informational graphics such as charts and diagrams, and is a fellow of the American Statistical Association. Tufte has held fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Center for Advanced Studies in Behavioral Sciences.
Tufte currently resides in Cheshire, Connecticut. He periodically travels around the United States to offer one-day workshops on data presentation and information graphics.
Note: Some books by this author have been published under the name Edward Tufte.
Tufte currently resides in Cheshire, Connecticut. He periodically travels around the United States to offer one-day workshops on data presentation and information graphics.
Note: Some books by this author have been published under the name Edward Tufte.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 153 reviews
June 8, 2014
Having finished all of Tufte's books now, I would rate them as follows:
1) Visual Explanations
2) The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
3) Envisioning Information
4) Beautiful Evidence
"Visual Display" is the one everyone knows about, but I thought "Visual Explanations" had a far higher didactic value and was more courteous to the reader's interests. It is really the one I would recommend to people who are interested in Tufte's work.
"Beautiful Evidence" is by far the worst; it is a muddled, arrogant mess that screams out with cosmic lungs for an editor. Several parts of it are recycled diagrams and illustrations from previous books. For example, we are given another lengthy treatment of the flow map of Napoleon's March made by Charles Minard, some trademark Tufte sperging about Swiss maps, and incomprehensible diagrams cataloging the outcome of English rowing competitions. All recycled examples from previous works. The reader also gets treated to a buffet of cranky, unfocused rants, about PowerPoint, improper use of the passive voice and the failure of publishers to properly integrate diagrams in Newton's "Opticks" (a full one and a half page is devoted to a table chronicling this most heinous of crimes).
What's left of the book could have been cut out and renamed "Cool Stuff I Found In My Library"; the experience would only improve. Tufte highlights a number of illustrations and diagrams from various fields, countries and historical periods, but does so in no apparent logical sequence, leaving the reader confused as Tufte muddles along in his high priest drone. For many of these illustrations, their worth seems to lie solely in their visual novelty. He makes very little effort to structure them into a coherent whole or educate the reader properly about the commonalities that should make us want to emulate them.
Still, as with most of Tufte's work, there are gems to be found. The treatment of sparklines is excellent, and his PPT treatment of the Gettysburg Address is a poignant underlining of the arguments in his otherwise non-noteworthy rant about PowerPoint. But on the whole, "Beautiful Evidence" is a waste of ink. It is a wholly unnecessary addition to Tufte's body of work and constitutes only a slight to his reputation. Not recommended.
1) Visual Explanations
2) The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
3) Envisioning Information
4) Beautiful Evidence
"Visual Display" is the one everyone knows about, but I thought "Visual Explanations" had a far higher didactic value and was more courteous to the reader's interests. It is really the one I would recommend to people who are interested in Tufte's work.
"Beautiful Evidence" is by far the worst; it is a muddled, arrogant mess that screams out with cosmic lungs for an editor. Several parts of it are recycled diagrams and illustrations from previous books. For example, we are given another lengthy treatment of the flow map of Napoleon's March made by Charles Minard, some trademark Tufte sperging about Swiss maps, and incomprehensible diagrams cataloging the outcome of English rowing competitions. All recycled examples from previous works. The reader also gets treated to a buffet of cranky, unfocused rants, about PowerPoint, improper use of the passive voice and the failure of publishers to properly integrate diagrams in Newton's "Opticks" (a full one and a half page is devoted to a table chronicling this most heinous of crimes).
What's left of the book could have been cut out and renamed "Cool Stuff I Found In My Library"; the experience would only improve. Tufte highlights a number of illustrations and diagrams from various fields, countries and historical periods, but does so in no apparent logical sequence, leaving the reader confused as Tufte muddles along in his high priest drone. For many of these illustrations, their worth seems to lie solely in their visual novelty. He makes very little effort to structure them into a coherent whole or educate the reader properly about the commonalities that should make us want to emulate them.
Still, as with most of Tufte's work, there are gems to be found. The treatment of sparklines is excellent, and his PPT treatment of the Gettysburg Address is a poignant underlining of the arguments in his otherwise non-noteworthy rant about PowerPoint. But on the whole, "Beautiful Evidence" is a waste of ink. It is a wholly unnecessary addition to Tufte's body of work and constitutes only a slight to his reputation. Not recommended.
November 12, 2016
Did anyone else notice that on p. 121, in the graph adapted from Carl Sagan, Tufte snuck in the Carolingian centaur (a tiny version of the large one featured on p. 84) alongside his regular animalia? "Other details below repay study," he winks.
On p. 179, the Table of Casualties listing causes and numbers of deaths in London from 1629-1660 is used to show how much information can be packed in, in contrast to a content-poor medium like PowerPoint. Just a few of the causes of mortality listed are:
Abortive and ftilborn
Aged
Bleach
Blafted
Burnt, and Scalded
Wolf (8 people)
Cut of the Stone
Drowned
Exceffive drinking
Executed
Fainted in a Bath (only 1)
Found dead in the Streets
Frighted
Gout
Grief
Hanged, and made-away themfelves
Head-Ach
Itch
Killed by feveral Accidents
King's Evil (scrofula)
Lethargy
Lunatique
Mother (referring not to murderous mothers, but the uterus)
Poysoned
Rupture
Smothered, and ftifled
Starved
Teeth, and Worms
Thrufh
Wen
Sodainly
It seems that several reviewers disparaged the final chapter on sculptures on pedestals; what did this have to do with the theme of the book? I liked the chapter. I now want to do more reading on pedestals. It's a bit of a diversion from the book's idea of evidence, unless you consider that a piece of sculpture is content, and the pedestal is not content. So the pedestal is kind of the equivalent of chartjunk, something devoid of meaning, at least in relation to the art above it. At the end of the chapter on pedestals Tufte features photos of some of his large scale sculptures. Yes, this is a little self-indulgent, but as he writes, they related to the topic of his next book: "the sculptures...provide experiences with walking, seeing, and constructing...".
Some smallish nitpicks. Tufte has a fetish for inserting a secondary color, red, into his text for emphasis. On p. 159, the word "Pravda." And most gratuitously, on p. 192, the word "hat."
The cover is appealing (two photos of a dog named Max diving into a body of water, taken by the author), but what does it have to do with the book's theme?
The book jacket could have been made more content-rich. The front flap, rather than containing a synopsis, is filled with complimentary blurbs for this and other of his books.
March 28, 2013
ET (as he refers to himself) clearly has great insights on conveying information. Much of the content here--sparklines, multivariate charts, the necessity of hierarchy--is revelatory. However, the book is repetitive, discontinuous, polemical, and self-indulgent. What's his beef with star charts? What do sculpture pedestals have to do with anything? The snarky tone that sneaks in periodically ("PowerPoint Phluff") is neither funny nor appropriate in context. And for a book designed by a designer, the physical layout vacillates between overwrought (all chapters ending with a perfect finish at the bottom of the page) and ill-conceived ("PowerPoint Phluff" graphics, Columbia captions). As a whole, the book is self-important rehashing of his previous successes with some good bits mixed in.
May 9, 2020
Design cannot rescue failed content...
If you hate meetings that include PowerPoint presentations ("chartjunk") and know there must be a better way to present information- read this book. Though not his best, the chapter on PowerPoint alone is worth the read. I first heard about Tufte in a college statistics class and came across his name recently in an article for Wired magazine. This year Tufte was appointed to the Recovery Independent Advisory Panel to assist in providing transparency in the use of the Recovery-related funds. If anyone can do THAT job, it's Tufte.
If you hate meetings that include PowerPoint presentations ("chartjunk") and know there must be a better way to present information- read this book. Though not his best, the chapter on PowerPoint alone is worth the read. I first heard about Tufte in a college statistics class and came across his name recently in an article for Wired magazine. This year Tufte was appointed to the Recovery Independent Advisory Panel to assist in providing transparency in the use of the Recovery-related funds. If anyone can do THAT job, it's Tufte.
August 29, 2010
The book led was one of the most enlightening books that I've every read. I've always had a penchant for using numbers, images, and heuristics to explain, and began taking Edward Tufte's courses when the opportunity arose, starting in 1998. He held them in hotel ballrooms throughout the United States, and his followers attended with cult-like repetition, sometimes registering for the same course 6 times in one year.
Edward Tufte is one of the most elegant designers of information alive today, the book was the beginning of my devotion to his philosophy of the visual articulation of facts, figures, and abstract concepts. This book, as well as professor Tufte's academic publishing, have influenced the world around us in so many ways. From the eloquent graphical explanations in the New York Times, to the vibrant digital displays of political elections on Fox News, and the historical statistics of hurricanes put forth on Weather Channel - all of this traces its heritage back to Edward Tufte and his award winning books.
If you want to escape the two-dimensional hell of explanation that is the improper use of Powerpoint, this book and its two companions, provide safe passage to the promised land of clear, robust, graphical discourses of complex ideas.
Edward Tufte is one of the most elegant designers of information alive today, the book was the beginning of my devotion to his philosophy of the visual articulation of facts, figures, and abstract concepts. This book, as well as professor Tufte's academic publishing, have influenced the world around us in so many ways. From the eloquent graphical explanations in the New York Times, to the vibrant digital displays of political elections on Fox News, and the historical statistics of hurricanes put forth on Weather Channel - all of this traces its heritage back to Edward Tufte and his award winning books.
If you want to escape the two-dimensional hell of explanation that is the improper use of Powerpoint, this book and its two companions, provide safe passage to the promised land of clear, robust, graphical discourses of complex ideas.
October 4, 2016
I have mixed feelings about Beautiful Evidence. When Tufte focuses on the details, he's practically sublime. The deconstruction of the map of Napoleon's march to Moscow is the highlight of the book. He takes this complex, interesting thing and breaks into pieces that are themselves complex and interesting. It's delightful.
But Tufte is prone to ranting and insults and in doing so he loses precision and insight. The chapter "The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint" is the low-water mark of the book, a rant that assails various aspects of PowerPoint defaults and common practice (from default graph styles to nested bullets to clipart and dingbats to organizational template requirements) without going into much detail on any one aspect. I had a much longer rant about the chapter, but I've decided to summarize instead: anyone who appeals to Richard Feynman as an authority is being an asshole.
There's a lot to love in Beautiful Evidence, but too often Tufte's writing substitutes a clever putdown in place of an actual argument. They're tedious barriers between you and what's great about this book.
But Tufte is prone to ranting and insults and in doing so he loses precision and insight. The chapter "The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint" is the low-water mark of the book, a rant that assails various aspects of PowerPoint defaults and common practice (from default graph styles to nested bullets to clipart and dingbats to organizational template requirements) without going into much detail on any one aspect. I had a much longer rant about the chapter, but I've decided to summarize instead: anyone who appeals to Richard Feynman as an authority is being an asshole.
There's a lot to love in Beautiful Evidence, but too often Tufte's writing substitutes a clever putdown in place of an actual argument. They're tedious barriers between you and what's great about this book.
November 16, 2007
Tufte is one of my intellectual heroes, so it's a little sad to see a book from him that I can't really recommend. It's as beautiful as ever, but the ideas don't cohere into a marvelously orchestrated framework as they do in Visual Displays of Quantitative Information.
Still, his brilliance and wit shine through in places, and for a Tufte fan it's still a worthy read. "Making a presentation is a moral act as well as an intellectual activity."
What Tufte has in common with other intellectuals I admire Alan Kay and Richard Feynman to name two) is that he challenges his readers to set their expectations and standards exhilaratingly high. For this reason, you may find Tufte disciples among the most vocal critics of this particular volume.
Still, his brilliance and wit shine through in places, and for a Tufte fan it's still a worthy read. "Making a presentation is a moral act as well as an intellectual activity."
What Tufte has in common with other intellectuals I admire Alan Kay and Richard Feynman to name two) is that he challenges his readers to set their expectations and standards exhilaratingly high. For this reason, you may find Tufte disciples among the most vocal critics of this particular volume.
July 17, 2016
Less and less seems to be at stake in each successive Tufte book; Beautiful Evidence falls more or less in incoherent vanity project territory. Yes, there are some gorgeous drawings and maps in here, and yes, I will be looking up that book about skiing the French way, but is PowerPoint design really "the hill you want to die on"? Increasingly put off by Tufte's central assumption that there are universal truths and that data are innocent until corruption by poor design. Stop trying to make sparklines happen!
March 25, 2019
Del mismo modo que hay que reconocer la inconmensurable labor de Edward Tufte en todo lo relativo a la puesta en valor de una apropiada visualización de datos, hay que señalar su libro más reciente como un trabajo falto de foco y algo pesado. En muchas ocasiones reutiliza muchos -demasiados- ejemplos de sus anteriores publicaciones, sus nuevos temas son un tanto peregrinos y caprichosos, su característico elegante lenguaje se muestra farragoso y hasta su actitud se vuelve altiva y prepotente. Con todo, hay muchos detalles y reflexiones interesantes, así como ejemplos maravillosos, empezando por el propio libro, bellísimo como siempre.
January 3, 2021
I enjoyed the book, especially the sections on mapped pictures and spark lines. The section on PowerPoint surprised me. I was happy to find someone who despises it as much as I do! The book as a whole was somewhat disjointed. Perhaps reading a section at a time with breaks in between would be better (I read it in one sitting).
August 30, 2019
A good follow-up to reading 'The Display of Quantitative Information'. It's much less focused on solid rules of thumb and more meditative.
Want to read
April 1, 2019p9
Evidence presentations should be created in accord with the common analytical tasks at hand, which usually involve understanding causality, making multivariate comparisons, examining relevant evidence, and assessing the credibility of evidence and conclusions. Thus the principles of evidence display are derived from the universal principles of analytical thinking - and not from local customs, intellectual fashions, consumer convenience, marketing, or what the technologies of display happen to make available.
Making an evidence presentation is a moral act as well as an intellectual activity. To maintain standards of quality, relevance, and integrity for evidence, consumers of presentations should insist that presenters be held intellectually and ethically responsible for what they show and tell. Thus consuming a presentation is also an intellectual and a moral activity.
p31
Similar pseudo-explanations arise in the statistical analysis of growth data, where one model appears to fit many varieties of data, at least in the eyes of those researchers already convinced.
p45
Well-designed and thoughtfully mapped pictures combine the direct visual evidence of images with the power of diagrams: Image's representational, local, specific, realistic, unique, detailed qualities; Diagram's contextualizing, abstracting, focusing, explanatory qualities.
Most explanatory and evidential images (presented in scientific research, newspapers, textbooks, technical manuals, legal proceedings, engineering reports, and the like) should be mapped, placed in an appropriate context for comparison, and located on the universal grid of measurement.
Mappings often represent an explanatory theory applied to the visual evidence. Therefore the standards of what constitutes a credible account also apply to mappings.
Mappings help tell why the image matters.
p47
These little data lines, because of their active quality over time, are named sparklines - small, high-resolution graphics usually embedded in a full context of words, numbers, images. Sparklines are datawords: data-intense, design-simple, word-sized graphics
p48
Words visually present both an overall shape and letter-by-letter detail; since most readers have seen the word previously, the visual task is usually one of quick recognition. Sparklines present an overall shape and aggregate pattern along with plenty of local detail. Sparklines are read the same way as words, although much more carefully and slowly.
p50
The idea is to be approximately right rather than exactly wrong.
Tables sometimes reinforce recency bias by showing only current levels or recent changes; sparklines improve the attention span of tables.
p55
Instead of simply piles of summary numbers in conventional tables, these sparkline-tables depict game-by-game records. Sparklines can narrate on-going results in detail for any process producing sequential binary outcomes.
p60
In general, statistical graphics should be moderately greater in length than in height.
Variations in slope are best detected when the slopes are around 45 degrees, uphill or downhill. To put this idea informally, aspect ratios should be such that time-series graphics tend toward a "lumpy" profile rather than a spiky profile or a flat profile.
p61
A good system for evidence display should be centered on evidence, not on a collection of application programs each devoted to a single mode of information. Rather than wandering around a bureaucracy of operating systems and applications, analysts should work entirely with evidence-documents...why should the intellectual architecture of our reports and our evidence reflect the chaos of software bureaucracies producing those reports?
p62
Areas surrounding data-lines may generate unintentional optical clutter. Strong frames produce melodramatic but content-diminishing visual effects...a good way to assess a display for unintentional optical clutter is to ask "Do the prominent visual effects convey relevant content?" In the exhibits above earning the unfortunate X, the most prominent visual effect is usually the clutter produced by activated negative space.
p63
Sparklines vastly increase the amount of data within our eyespan and intensify statistical graphics up to the everyday routine capabilities of the human eye-brain system for reasoning about visual evidence, seeing distinctions, and making comparisons...providing a straightforward and contextual look at intense evidence, sparkline graphics give us some chance to be approximately right rather than exactly wrong.
p79
...clunky boxes, cartoony arrows, amateur typography, and colorful chartjunk degrade diagrams. If your display looks like a knock-off from a corporate annual report or a PowerPoint pitch, start over.
Designs for analytical diagrams should be clear, efficient, undecorated, maplike; the content should be intense, explanatory, evidential, maplike. The metaphor is the map, not stupidity.
p80
...this bond between verbal and nonverbal evidence has sometimes come undone in the process of publishing, as the assorted technologies of reproduction and presentation have segregated information by the accident of its mode of production.
p88
If you look after truth and goodness,
Beauty looks after herself
p111
For Newton's Optics, bureaucracies of presentation and mechanical reproduction corrupted the understanding of the content. You're lucky if they don't.
p121
1 Clutter is a failure of design, not an attribute of information. 2 Visual problems should not be fixed by reducing content-resolution (such as, for example, discarding words that label data). 3 Instead, fix the design.
p129
Those 6 dimensions are shown with distinct clarity. There is no instruction manual, nor a jargon fog about a spatial-temporal hyper-space focus group executive dashboard web-based keystone methodology. Instead it is War and Peace as told by a visual Tolstoy.
p130
The only thing that is 2-dimensional about evidence is the physical flatland of paper and computer screen. Flatlandy technologies of display encourage flatlandy thinking.
p132
Publicly attributed authorship indicates to readers that someone is taking responsibility for the analysis; conversely. the absence of names signals an evasion of responsibility...people may do better work when they receive public acknowledgment and take public responsibility for their work.
p133
In business and financial displays, the common errors and lies involve corrupt measurement scales: absence of labels, undefined or imprecise series, inflated rather than inflation-adjusted monetary units, and time-shifting of data (such as the notorious premature revenue recognition).
p136
Analytical presentations ultimately stand or fall depending on the quality, relevance, and integrity of their content.
[This] principle points to priorities in analytical design work: this is a content-drive craft, to be evaluated by its success in assisting thinking about the substance.
p141
Making a presentation is a moral act as well as an intellectual activity. The use of corrupt manipulations and blatant rhetorical ploys in a report or presentation - outright lying, flagwaving, personal attacks, setting up phony alternatives, misdirection, jargon-mongering, evading key issues, feigning disinterested objectivity, willful misunderstanding of other points of view - suggests that the presenter lacks both credibility and evidence. To maintain standards of quality, relevance, and integrity for evidence, consumers of presentations should insist that the presenters be held intellectually and ethically responsible for what they show and tell. Thus consuming a presentation is also an intellectual and a moral activity.
A particular danger, then, of corrupt maneuvers is not only that they enable lying but also that they place the truth in disrepute.
p142
Why should we fail to be vigilant and rigorous about the quality of evidence and its presentation just because a report is part of a public dialogue, or is meant for the news media, or is from the government, or concerns an important matter?
p144
It is a principle that shines impartially on the just and unjust that once you have a point of view all history will back you up.
p149
economisting 1. The act or process of converting limited evidence into grand claims by means of punning, multiplicity of meaning, and over-reaching. 2. The belief or practice that empirical evidence can only confirm and never disconfirm a favored theory. 3. Conclusions that are theory-driven, not evidence-based. See also confirmation bias, painting with a broad brush, Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, marketing, post-modern critical theory, German meaning of "mist".
p152
Charjunk flows from the premise that audiences can be charmed, distracted, or fooled by means of content-free misdirection: garish colors, designer colors, corny clip-art, generic decoration, phony dimensionality.
Evidence presentations should be created in accord with the common analytical tasks at hand, which usually involve understanding causality, making multivariate comparisons, examining relevant evidence, and assessing the credibility of evidence and conclusions. Thus the principles of evidence display are derived from the universal principles of analytical thinking - and not from local customs, intellectual fashions, consumer convenience, marketing, or what the technologies of display happen to make available.
Making an evidence presentation is a moral act as well as an intellectual activity. To maintain standards of quality, relevance, and integrity for evidence, consumers of presentations should insist that presenters be held intellectually and ethically responsible for what they show and tell. Thus consuming a presentation is also an intellectual and a moral activity.
p31
Similar pseudo-explanations arise in the statistical analysis of growth data, where one model appears to fit many varieties of data, at least in the eyes of those researchers already convinced.
p45
Well-designed and thoughtfully mapped pictures combine the direct visual evidence of images with the power of diagrams: Image's representational, local, specific, realistic, unique, detailed qualities; Diagram's contextualizing, abstracting, focusing, explanatory qualities.
Most explanatory and evidential images (presented in scientific research, newspapers, textbooks, technical manuals, legal proceedings, engineering reports, and the like) should be mapped, placed in an appropriate context for comparison, and located on the universal grid of measurement.
Mappings often represent an explanatory theory applied to the visual evidence. Therefore the standards of what constitutes a credible account also apply to mappings.
Mappings help tell why the image matters.
p47
These little data lines, because of their active quality over time, are named sparklines - small, high-resolution graphics usually embedded in a full context of words, numbers, images. Sparklines are datawords: data-intense, design-simple, word-sized graphics
p48
Words visually present both an overall shape and letter-by-letter detail; since most readers have seen the word previously, the visual task is usually one of quick recognition. Sparklines present an overall shape and aggregate pattern along with plenty of local detail. Sparklines are read the same way as words, although much more carefully and slowly.
p50
The idea is to be approximately right rather than exactly wrong.
Tables sometimes reinforce recency bias by showing only current levels or recent changes; sparklines improve the attention span of tables.
p55
Instead of simply piles of summary numbers in conventional tables, these sparkline-tables depict game-by-game records. Sparklines can narrate on-going results in detail for any process producing sequential binary outcomes.
p60
In general, statistical graphics should be moderately greater in length than in height.
Variations in slope are best detected when the slopes are around 45 degrees, uphill or downhill. To put this idea informally, aspect ratios should be such that time-series graphics tend toward a "lumpy" profile rather than a spiky profile or a flat profile.
p61
A good system for evidence display should be centered on evidence, not on a collection of application programs each devoted to a single mode of information. Rather than wandering around a bureaucracy of operating systems and applications, analysts should work entirely with evidence-documents...why should the intellectual architecture of our reports and our evidence reflect the chaos of software bureaucracies producing those reports?
p62
Areas surrounding data-lines may generate unintentional optical clutter. Strong frames produce melodramatic but content-diminishing visual effects...a good way to assess a display for unintentional optical clutter is to ask "Do the prominent visual effects convey relevant content?" In the exhibits above earning the unfortunate X, the most prominent visual effect is usually the clutter produced by activated negative space.
p63
Sparklines vastly increase the amount of data within our eyespan and intensify statistical graphics up to the everyday routine capabilities of the human eye-brain system for reasoning about visual evidence, seeing distinctions, and making comparisons...providing a straightforward and contextual look at intense evidence, sparkline graphics give us some chance to be approximately right rather than exactly wrong.
p79
...clunky boxes, cartoony arrows, amateur typography, and colorful chartjunk degrade diagrams. If your display looks like a knock-off from a corporate annual report or a PowerPoint pitch, start over.
Designs for analytical diagrams should be clear, efficient, undecorated, maplike; the content should be intense, explanatory, evidential, maplike. The metaphor is the map, not stupidity.
p80
...this bond between verbal and nonverbal evidence has sometimes come undone in the process of publishing, as the assorted technologies of reproduction and presentation have segregated information by the accident of its mode of production.
p88
If you look after truth and goodness,
Beauty looks after herself
p111
For Newton's Optics, bureaucracies of presentation and mechanical reproduction corrupted the understanding of the content. You're lucky if they don't.
p121
1 Clutter is a failure of design, not an attribute of information. 2 Visual problems should not be fixed by reducing content-resolution (such as, for example, discarding words that label data). 3 Instead, fix the design.
p129
Those 6 dimensions are shown with distinct clarity. There is no instruction manual, nor a jargon fog about a spatial-temporal hyper-space focus group executive dashboard web-based keystone methodology. Instead it is War and Peace as told by a visual Tolstoy.
p130
The only thing that is 2-dimensional about evidence is the physical flatland of paper and computer screen. Flatlandy technologies of display encourage flatlandy thinking.
p132
Publicly attributed authorship indicates to readers that someone is taking responsibility for the analysis; conversely. the absence of names signals an evasion of responsibility...people may do better work when they receive public acknowledgment and take public responsibility for their work.
p133
In business and financial displays, the common errors and lies involve corrupt measurement scales: absence of labels, undefined or imprecise series, inflated rather than inflation-adjusted monetary units, and time-shifting of data (such as the notorious premature revenue recognition).
p136
Analytical presentations ultimately stand or fall depending on the quality, relevance, and integrity of their content.
[This] principle points to priorities in analytical design work: this is a content-drive craft, to be evaluated by its success in assisting thinking about the substance.
p141
Making a presentation is a moral act as well as an intellectual activity. The use of corrupt manipulations and blatant rhetorical ploys in a report or presentation - outright lying, flagwaving, personal attacks, setting up phony alternatives, misdirection, jargon-mongering, evading key issues, feigning disinterested objectivity, willful misunderstanding of other points of view - suggests that the presenter lacks both credibility and evidence. To maintain standards of quality, relevance, and integrity for evidence, consumers of presentations should insist that the presenters be held intellectually and ethically responsible for what they show and tell. Thus consuming a presentation is also an intellectual and a moral activity.
A particular danger, then, of corrupt maneuvers is not only that they enable lying but also that they place the truth in disrepute.
p142
Why should we fail to be vigilant and rigorous about the quality of evidence and its presentation just because a report is part of a public dialogue, or is meant for the news media, or is from the government, or concerns an important matter?
p144
It is a principle that shines impartially on the just and unjust that once you have a point of view all history will back you up.
p149
economisting 1. The act or process of converting limited evidence into grand claims by means of punning, multiplicity of meaning, and over-reaching. 2. The belief or practice that empirical evidence can only confirm and never disconfirm a favored theory. 3. Conclusions that are theory-driven, not evidence-based. See also confirmation bias, painting with a broad brush, Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, marketing, post-modern critical theory, German meaning of "mist".
p152
Charjunk flows from the premise that audiences can be charmed, distracted, or fooled by means of content-free misdirection: garish colors, designer colors, corny clip-art, generic decoration, phony dimensionality.
May 26, 2013
In this work, Tufte focusses as usual on great visual design, and relates it closely to how design can provide solid, reliable, uncorrupted information.
As always this is a great book, perhaps better than the others except his first (Visual Display of Quantitative...). I especially liked the detailed analyses of bad examples, and of good ones. He gives concrete advice, and in this book actually introduces a visual innovation (sparklines) which have turned out to be very useful in the real world.
He revisits a couple of past topics, including a much more detailed analysis of the famous visual describing troop losses in Napoleon's Russian campaign. But there is a lot of new material here, and again several cases where he shows how to improve existing designs. His quest for data density is sometimes taken to excess, but always illuminating.
The book ends rather weakly. He has a long anti-PowerPoint diatribe, in which he takes a couple of true things (PowerPoints are no substitute for technical report documents, and many powerpoints are very thin/bad/weak) and elevates them without deep evidence to a more philosophical point. It would be great for everyone who writes presentations to read this section, but I would then recommend keeping using PowerPoint while keeping these excellent critiques in mind.
Finally, there are a bunch of colour pictures of sculptures made by Tufte. If this is beautiful evidence of anything, it is evidence that self-publishing always leads to a little self-indulgence.
As always this is a great book, perhaps better than the others except his first (Visual Display of Quantitative...). I especially liked the detailed analyses of bad examples, and of good ones. He gives concrete advice, and in this book actually introduces a visual innovation (sparklines) which have turned out to be very useful in the real world.
He revisits a couple of past topics, including a much more detailed analysis of the famous visual describing troop losses in Napoleon's Russian campaign. But there is a lot of new material here, and again several cases where he shows how to improve existing designs. His quest for data density is sometimes taken to excess, but always illuminating.
The book ends rather weakly. He has a long anti-PowerPoint diatribe, in which he takes a couple of true things (PowerPoints are no substitute for technical report documents, and many powerpoints are very thin/bad/weak) and elevates them without deep evidence to a more philosophical point. It would be great for everyone who writes presentations to read this section, but I would then recommend keeping using PowerPoint while keeping these excellent critiques in mind.
Finally, there are a bunch of colour pictures of sculptures made by Tufte. If this is beautiful evidence of anything, it is evidence that self-publishing always leads to a little self-indulgence.
December 29, 2010
Tufte really doesn't like PowerPoint.
I thought it was really sad that this book, like Visual Explanations, features a story about how a failure to accurately present information caused a disaster at NASA. In Visual Explanations it was the Challenger, and in this book it was Columbia. Sad that even years later NASA hadn't taken the lessons learned from the Challenger disaster and applied a more rigorous investigation of the evidence before concluding that Columbia was safe to re-enter.
One of my favorite sections of this book was a quote about the causality of influence:
Overall I thought this book was great, but I don't think it's quite as good as the other Tufte books.
I thought it was really sad that this book, like Visual Explanations, features a story about how a failure to accurately present information caused a disaster at NASA. In Visual Explanations it was the Challenger, and in this book it was Columbia. Sad that even years later NASA hadn't taken the lessons learned from the Challenger disaster and applied a more rigorous investigation of the evidence before concluding that Columbia was safe to re-enter.
One of my favorite sections of this book was a quote about the causality of influence:
If one says that X influenced Y it does seem that one is saying that X did something to Y rather than that Y did something to X…If we think of Y rather than X as the agent, the vocabulary is much richer and more attractively diversified: drawn on, resort to, adapt, pick up, absorb, assimilate, address, paraphrase, elaborate on…(quoted from Patterns of Intention: On the Historical Explanation of Pictures).
Overall I thought this book was great, but I don't think it's quite as good as the other Tufte books.
August 7, 2009
Another beautiful book about information design from one of the smartest guys in the field. Tufte continues to practice what he preaches in the design of the book— it looks, feels, and even smells like a book designed by someone with an incredible attention to every detail. As for the subject matter, much will be familiar to readers of his previous three books. There are some new illustrations, but more than a few have been used before. The essays are somewhat uneven-- I really enjoyed the chapter about sparklines, and his demolition of Powerpoint near the end of the book was pretty much worth the cover price by itself. But a bunch of the other chapters felt like retreads of previous material and left me feeling like I hadn't learned anything new.
January 10, 2020
Our ever-increasing hoards of data provide less and less knowledge. Edward Tufte, "the da Vinci of data," shows how to present data in a way that allows the human brain to understand details and achieve insight. This is another beautifully illustrated book with many amazing examples - including a foldout with Minard's famous illustration of Napoleon's ill-fated Russian campaign. Everybody wanting to use PowerPoint should be required to read the scathing chapter "The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint" before being allowed to produce another presentation. Highly recommended.
Read
June 28, 2023Another read for work, though I hesitate to log this because in truth I skimmed it aside from a few particularly relevant chapters (notably, the Sparkline sections and the chapter where Tufte lights up powerpoint). This is certainly a very pretty book to look at, with a great variety of charts, pictures, and views on how various types of evidence come together (or don’t). That said, the age of the text shows.
Tufte repeats a theme throughout the book - words, numbers, charts, pictures, these are all pieces of evidence, and should live within the same universe. Sparklines are a terribly interesting example of this. They have certainly been standard in the financial world as long as I can recall, but when I think of how to apply them to things like homeless services and other domains, I get a little finicky. Tufte notes that these typography-sized charts are able to stand on their own, unadorned by labels and grids and such, because the text around them provides the context. That is very interesting, but I wonder. The most powerful example of these is the glucose chart - but it is adorned with a variety of labels (or at least, the colored points - which I like).
I found myself very curious to apply these to datasets I work with - I just wrote a 6 page memo with a variety of graphs and charts that I grated my teeth at when e-mailing them out. How could I have improved these with some of Tufte’s theory? How could Sparklines have been used? If I want to do this, though, I have to have some capacity to MAKE them, and that is a question even Tufte doesn’t know how to answer. On page 61 he notes that it is cumbersome (in 2006) to produce these, people need a page layout software (ie Word, though I think he’s probably really talking about InDesign), a graphic design program (which again, I think could be collapsed into InDesign), and a statistical analysis software capable of generating a chart that could be resized in the other softwares. This is a bit of a mess. It is no easier, so far as I know, in 2023. The most time consuming part of my 6 page memo (other than the actual data analysis) was figuring out how to make the charts align properly in MS Word. We still haven’t figured this out, and Tufte doesn’t make any meaningful suggestions. The one suggestion he seems to make is going back to the MS-DOS days, where everything was in one program. I think that ship has probably sailed. I am also skeptical of all these functionalities living in one software - I’m concerned it would be a software that does many things poorly instead of one thing relatively well.
I did particularly enjoy Tufte’s hatred of powerpoint. Though, in the nearly 20 years since this book’s publication, I wonder if we’re starting to slowly move past it. I think if I e-mailed out a 2-page technical memo ahead of a meeting it might cause a row of seizures (though I would certainly prefer it). This certainly comes from the era of powerpoints *as content* rather than powerpoints as an aid to content. I think many of us (but not all) have gotten better about this. A recurring problem that I’ve had when trying to break past powerpoint is how to show large tables of data on a screen - I need something that I can intuitively zoom in and out of, but that is a tall order when you can break a table across multiple powerpoint slides for emphasis.
An interesting text - if you walk into someone’s house and this is their coffee table book, ask to see the incredible fold out of Minard’s map of the retreat of the French army from Russia. Tufte is clearly in love with this graphic, and for good reason.
Tufte repeats a theme throughout the book - words, numbers, charts, pictures, these are all pieces of evidence, and should live within the same universe. Sparklines are a terribly interesting example of this. They have certainly been standard in the financial world as long as I can recall, but when I think of how to apply them to things like homeless services and other domains, I get a little finicky. Tufte notes that these typography-sized charts are able to stand on their own, unadorned by labels and grids and such, because the text around them provides the context. That is very interesting, but I wonder. The most powerful example of these is the glucose chart - but it is adorned with a variety of labels (or at least, the colored points - which I like).
I found myself very curious to apply these to datasets I work with - I just wrote a 6 page memo with a variety of graphs and charts that I grated my teeth at when e-mailing them out. How could I have improved these with some of Tufte’s theory? How could Sparklines have been used? If I want to do this, though, I have to have some capacity to MAKE them, and that is a question even Tufte doesn’t know how to answer. On page 61 he notes that it is cumbersome (in 2006) to produce these, people need a page layout software (ie Word, though I think he’s probably really talking about InDesign), a graphic design program (which again, I think could be collapsed into InDesign), and a statistical analysis software capable of generating a chart that could be resized in the other softwares. This is a bit of a mess. It is no easier, so far as I know, in 2023. The most time consuming part of my 6 page memo (other than the actual data analysis) was figuring out how to make the charts align properly in MS Word. We still haven’t figured this out, and Tufte doesn’t make any meaningful suggestions. The one suggestion he seems to make is going back to the MS-DOS days, where everything was in one program. I think that ship has probably sailed. I am also skeptical of all these functionalities living in one software - I’m concerned it would be a software that does many things poorly instead of one thing relatively well.
I did particularly enjoy Tufte’s hatred of powerpoint. Though, in the nearly 20 years since this book’s publication, I wonder if we’re starting to slowly move past it. I think if I e-mailed out a 2-page technical memo ahead of a meeting it might cause a row of seizures (though I would certainly prefer it). This certainly comes from the era of powerpoints *as content* rather than powerpoints as an aid to content. I think many of us (but not all) have gotten better about this. A recurring problem that I’ve had when trying to break past powerpoint is how to show large tables of data on a screen - I need something that I can intuitively zoom in and out of, but that is a tall order when you can break a table across multiple powerpoint slides for emphasis.
An interesting text - if you walk into someone’s house and this is their coffee table book, ask to see the incredible fold out of Minard’s map of the retreat of the French army from Russia. Tufte is clearly in love with this graphic, and for good reason.
Read
January 15, 2024I’ve read a couple of infographics books recently (W.E.B. Du Bois’s Data Portraits: Visualizing Black America and The Minard System: The Complete Statistical Graphics of Charles Joseph Minard) and was eager to get to Edward Tufte. I enjoyed the part on Minard’s Napoleon graphic. The soldier’s account of the French Army’s disastrous crossing of the Berezina River was bone-chilling. Victor Hugo’s poem about Napoleon leaving Moscow was also very revealing. Pointing out for my pigeon-brained self that the graphic never explicitly names Napoleon was pretty neat.
That the word Napoleon does not appear on the map of Napoleon’s march indicates here at least full attention is to be given to memorializing the dead soldiers rather than celebrating the surviving celebrity.
One could argue the graphic does nothing but showcase Napoleon’s greatest failure, so this is in no way celebratory whether or not he is named. Anyhow, it’s a fun detail. None of this supplemental information was included in The Minard System: The Complete Statistical Graphics of Charles Joseph Minard. Good job, Edward.
There’s some cool stuff in here such as a diagram that teaches you how to detect if someone is carrying a concealed firearm. I feel that’s information the kindhearted, innocent folks of goodreads could benefit from.
My favorite chapter was the first. As an architect, I found Edward’s insistence on annotating all graphics powerful. To offer orientation, scale, comparison, identifiers, etc. to any graphic, even a personal photograph, is inspiring. From here on (minus his attack against senseless “linking arrows” and showcasing the utility of “sparklines”) the book’s quality declines. Some of the more interesting tidbits are quotes from outside sources such as:
It is a principle that shines impartially on the just and the unjust that once you have a point of view all history will back you up -Van Wyck Brooks
The rage for wanting to conclude is one of the most deadly and most fruitless manias to befall humanity… -Gustave Flaubert
I skipped the chapter on powerpoints. My biggest criticism was the last chapter which focuses on Edward’s sculptures. He prefaces photographs of his artwork with an analysis of sculptural pedestals and how they are similar to the visual pollution that successful design staves off. He claims to have designed sculptures “that sit directly on the grass. For support, those works on the land have elaborate structural bases, buried entirely in the earth.” Before seeing the photographs of his sculptures, I imagined how Edward could employ his earlier advice regarding annotations to show the reader how this minimal engineering was achieved. This would have been an amazing way to tie up loose ends. Include the photographs of your sculptures with overlayed dimension strings, dashed foundations, and enlarged detail vignettes. Having a diagram with the sculptures lined up in a row to compare the works’ scale and corresponding foundation sizing would have been incredible. He praised the following diagram for example:
Instead, we get photographs of the sculptures following a heavy snow which conceals how the sculptures meet the ground. Another where sheep are in the way. There’s even a photograph of a sculpture and the ground has been erased. What was the point of all this?
I’m excited to read Edward’s earlier stuff as it appears to be more concise.
That the word Napoleon does not appear on the map of Napoleon’s march indicates here at least full attention is to be given to memorializing the dead soldiers rather than celebrating the surviving celebrity.
One could argue the graphic does nothing but showcase Napoleon’s greatest failure, so this is in no way celebratory whether or not he is named. Anyhow, it’s a fun detail. None of this supplemental information was included in The Minard System: The Complete Statistical Graphics of Charles Joseph Minard. Good job, Edward.
There’s some cool stuff in here such as a diagram that teaches you how to detect if someone is carrying a concealed firearm. I feel that’s information the kindhearted, innocent folks of goodreads could benefit from.
My favorite chapter was the first. As an architect, I found Edward’s insistence on annotating all graphics powerful. To offer orientation, scale, comparison, identifiers, etc. to any graphic, even a personal photograph, is inspiring. From here on (minus his attack against senseless “linking arrows” and showcasing the utility of “sparklines”) the book’s quality declines. Some of the more interesting tidbits are quotes from outside sources such as:
It is a principle that shines impartially on the just and the unjust that once you have a point of view all history will back you up -Van Wyck Brooks
The rage for wanting to conclude is one of the most deadly and most fruitless manias to befall humanity… -Gustave Flaubert
I skipped the chapter on powerpoints. My biggest criticism was the last chapter which focuses on Edward’s sculptures. He prefaces photographs of his artwork with an analysis of sculptural pedestals and how they are similar to the visual pollution that successful design staves off. He claims to have designed sculptures “that sit directly on the grass. For support, those works on the land have elaborate structural bases, buried entirely in the earth.” Before seeing the photographs of his sculptures, I imagined how Edward could employ his earlier advice regarding annotations to show the reader how this minimal engineering was achieved. This would have been an amazing way to tie up loose ends. Include the photographs of your sculptures with overlayed dimension strings, dashed foundations, and enlarged detail vignettes. Having a diagram with the sculptures lined up in a row to compare the works’ scale and corresponding foundation sizing would have been incredible. He praised the following diagram for example:
Instead, we get photographs of the sculptures following a heavy snow which conceals how the sculptures meet the ground. Another where sheep are in the way. There’s even a photograph of a sculpture and the ground has been erased. What was the point of all this?
I’m excited to read Edward’s earlier stuff as it appears to be more concise.
December 30, 2024
Edward Tufte’s books on data visualization are nothing short of legend among us information geeks. A political scientist by training, he demonstrates how well-conceived visualizations can effectively communicate insights and how shortcomings can create catastrophes. He continues his famous series on visual imagination with this book on the intersection of data and art. He shows how displays of evidence can move readers much like art and how poorly constructed displays can inhibit good judgment.
Tufte’s highly intellectual writing style remains constant across this series. He notices nuance in illustrations that few others would highlight, but then balloons these observed nuances into foundational insights that can transform the way we communicate data. For instance, he shows how NASA might have prevented the 2006 Challenger disaster were the updates placed into a technical report instead of a slide format.
This book focuses on other items about the fundamentals of information visualization: “sparklines” to communicate trends, how to show causality and to avoid showing it when it’s not implied, and how to map and not to map insights on illustrations. Personally, I tend to have a tough time translating visuals into words, but reading works like Tufte’s increases my skills dramatically. He makes me think hard about how I communicate my scientific findings. His work is not restricted to science only, though, but encompasses most data-driven fields. Such breadth makes for a fun read that engages the imagination.
I wish that every serious professional who relies on communicating information would read a book (or several!) of Tufte’s to enhance their presentation skills. He’s simply on his own level. I have read other experts in the field, but Tufte’s thoughtfulness surpasses. We live in an age where information is abundant – perhaps too abundant. Books like this one help us filter data’s noise so that we can communicate more effectively… and more beautifully.
Tufte’s highly intellectual writing style remains constant across this series. He notices nuance in illustrations that few others would highlight, but then balloons these observed nuances into foundational insights that can transform the way we communicate data. For instance, he shows how NASA might have prevented the 2006 Challenger disaster were the updates placed into a technical report instead of a slide format.
This book focuses on other items about the fundamentals of information visualization: “sparklines” to communicate trends, how to show causality and to avoid showing it when it’s not implied, and how to map and not to map insights on illustrations. Personally, I tend to have a tough time translating visuals into words, but reading works like Tufte’s increases my skills dramatically. He makes me think hard about how I communicate my scientific findings. His work is not restricted to science only, though, but encompasses most data-driven fields. Such breadth makes for a fun read that engages the imagination.
I wish that every serious professional who relies on communicating information would read a book (or several!) of Tufte’s to enhance their presentation skills. He’s simply on his own level. I have read other experts in the field, but Tufte’s thoughtfulness surpasses. We live in an age where information is abundant – perhaps too abundant. Books like this one help us filter data’s noise so that we can communicate more effectively… and more beautifully.
May 25, 2017
The beauty of Tufte's books comes up a lot in reviews. Yes, the paper is very nice. Yes, I appreciate the line length and margin proportions … but is that the point? Would Tufte say say it was (ok, he might well, but at least you could argue that back with what he's written)? In contrast I've got Kosslyn's book sat on my desk while i write this. Kosslyn's book is ugly. The cover is a design crime (despite the author reminding the reader that books are judged on their covers!), the page furniture is a dated cliche, and the horizontal page splits are aggravating, but just from a casual browse it appears to be a better text on displaying data than any of Tufte's.
That said:
Based on my ambivalence about Tufte and some negative reviews that seemed only too plausible for the author, I was expecting the worst, but found this surprisingly good. Yes, the last couple of chapters and the cover dilute the quality, but the rest seems sound. Excellent illustrations, as always (though i'm not sure they are integrated quite so masterfully into the text and the author believes!).
3.5/5 due to repeated content and pedestals. This might appear to be a very negative positive review, but the book *is* worth a read.
That said:
Based on my ambivalence about Tufte and some negative reviews that seemed only too plausible for the author, I was expecting the worst, but found this surprisingly good. Yes, the last couple of chapters and the cover dilute the quality, but the rest seems sound. Excellent illustrations, as always (though i'm not sure they are integrated quite so masterfully into the text and the author believes!).
3.5/5 due to repeated content and pedestals. This might appear to be a very negative positive review, but the book *is* worth a read.
June 20, 2017
I like Edward Tufte. I appreciate his view on self exemplifying documents and the need for intelligent and beautiful design of information. I've browsed three of his large books: The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Beautiful Evidence, and Envisioning Information. While they are all beautiful books and very interesting, I can't help wishing they had a higher usability factor. He wants the reader to move slowly and study each example as he has, which has merit, to be sure, but the larger principles he is demonstrating get lost in the details rather than creating/building a clear, coherent, and usable philosophy. From my point of view, the great value of visual information is their ability to give themselves to the viewer. I kept hoping these books would give themselves, but Tufte wants his readers to work for it rather than immerse themselves in it. I think with a second designer to give him a little distance, these books would do everything he wished for and more.
Want to read
June 28, 2017WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT:
Tufte shows how to examine data for quality and "truthiness". Tufte also shows how to "design" information to turn meaningless data into meaningful, usable information--which could improve your business communications to nuclear-strength, or help the war on "Fake News".
Due to the cost-cutting elimination of many fact-checkers and overseers of information quality & ethics in newsagencies, corporations, and schools, many people are losing important teachers and tools for critical thinking ie. being able to tell or comprehend "real truths" versus "fake" information. This affects everybody's freedom (that we really DON'T think to protect) by manipulating the public, voting, and whether they can protect themselves from fraudsters.
eBook found at: Internet Archive Open Library which works in partnership with public libraries: https://openlibrary.org
Tufte shows how to examine data for quality and "truthiness". Tufte also shows how to "design" information to turn meaningless data into meaningful, usable information--which could improve your business communications to nuclear-strength, or help the war on "Fake News".
Due to the cost-cutting elimination of many fact-checkers and overseers of information quality & ethics in newsagencies, corporations, and schools, many people are losing important teachers and tools for critical thinking ie. being able to tell or comprehend "real truths" versus "fake" information. This affects everybody's freedom (that we really DON'T think to protect) by manipulating the public, voting, and whether they can protect themselves from fraudsters.
eBook found at: Internet Archive Open Library which works in partnership with public libraries: https://openlibrary.org
Read
July 15, 2017Mesmerizingly studious analysis of design, both the good and the bad. The chapter "Fundamental Principles of Analytical Design" (on Minard's classic infographic depicting the demise of the French Grand Army in the Russia campaign of 1812-13) made Tufte famous, and deserves its encomia: its insights, enhanced by its own magisterial design as an essay/presentation, compel the reader throughout an excruciatingly detailed consideration of data. The chapter on sparklines is another highlight. While I found the anti-PowerPoint screed less convincing than the others (to call it "unconvincing" is too generous, really: I could understand his animus against PowerPoint if the program had assaulted one of Tufte's children, perhaps, but it seems wildly disproportionate -- that piece consistently conflates user flaws with program flaws, creating an army of strawmen), every chapter in this elegant book delivered interesting ideas in beautiful form.
March 3, 2022
It's only fair that this book should be held as a foundational text of not only data visualization but of the entire field of statistics. Here, Tufte reveals himself as an acute thinker; funny, witty, ironic, vicious in his criticism but backed up by a profound intellect.
This intellect is impressive insofar as it is broad (as any statistician's should be). Tufte, unlike many modern "data advocates", understands that data is only as useful as its presentation is sound. The author becomes an apostle for commonly overseen best practices such as proper scaling and labeling, causality-awareness, de-cluttering, and high-dimensionality.
Towards the end of the book, the reader might be surprised to find this is not only a book about good graphs. The stakes are in fact much higher. By championing the (sadly underused) concept of "analytical design", Tufte shows us how aesthetics, numeracy, and integrity stand at the crossroads of how we view, and reason about, life-changing evidence.
This intellect is impressive insofar as it is broad (as any statistician's should be). Tufte, unlike many modern "data advocates", understands that data is only as useful as its presentation is sound. The author becomes an apostle for commonly overseen best practices such as proper scaling and labeling, causality-awareness, de-cluttering, and high-dimensionality.
Towards the end of the book, the reader might be surprised to find this is not only a book about good graphs. The stakes are in fact much higher. By championing the (sadly underused) concept of "analytical design", Tufte shows us how aesthetics, numeracy, and integrity stand at the crossroads of how we view, and reason about, life-changing evidence.
June 17, 2024
In a world suffused with software and applications that ploot out data visualizations automatically, this volume represents a return to first principals for me. I first encountered Tufte's design ideas while working as a cartographer. There was so much good sense in what he was proposing as best practices that I took them on as hard rules. Unfortunately they are hard to get right. When Excel adopted Sparklines as a template they effectively killed that visualization as an effective technique, dumbing it down and confusing viewers when it wasn't used correctly.
That is kind of the story of all of Tufte's recommendations. These observations, laid out so carefully in beautiful books, were co-opted by software companies looking to stand out. The ascent of Tableau has finally encompassed all of the letter of Tufte's innovations, but none of the spirit.
It's nice to go back and see that these books still have intelligent advice to confer upon those of us who care about data.
That is kind of the story of all of Tufte's recommendations. These observations, laid out so carefully in beautiful books, were co-opted by software companies looking to stand out. The ascent of Tableau has finally encompassed all of the letter of Tufte's innovations, but none of the spirit.
It's nice to go back and see that these books still have intelligent advice to confer upon those of us who care about data.
September 27, 2017
I actually enjoyed the book up to the point where the author started ranting about Powerpoint and then bragged randomly about his sculptures. He cherry picked some of the worse PPT presentation ever and made a general sweeping conclusion of how you should use MS Word for your presentation instead. Seriously though, no one really makes slides like that anymore, and you cannot blame the software for the presenter's laziness. It's just as horrible when people print out their papers and just read out of them word-by-word. Also, not all presentations are important enough to involve the whole graphic department as well as statisticians working for days. Great, timeless graphics clearly have their place in the history. But just like everything else, they are great and rare because they are very hard to make and require a lot of time.
December 3, 2018
The chapter on ineffectual PowerPoint use was refreshing to see. At the same time, the recommendation to always use technical reports instead felt misguided, and the chapter failed to consider an audience who actively doesn't want to be there. While I can appreciate an opinionated author, this bordered on arrogance, an opinion reinforced by the inclusion of several pages of pictures of his own sculpture at the close of the book, ostensibly to show how sculpture can be a part of the landscape without a pedestal. But some of his examples seem gratuitous: hanging bird sculptures by wires doesn't provide me much insight on how to fix the pedestal problem in sculptures which clearly need to be anchored to land.
October 25, 2018
The fourth of Tufte's series of books on the visual display of information. It is the most eccentric of the series and includes a moderate amount of recycled material from the previous volumes. There is remarkable vitriol in an amount that I think you can only see in a self-published book, with an illustrated non-anonymized attack on one economics professor's book, and a prolonged attack on Microsoft Powerpoint that refers to Stalin more than once. There are also, of course, many interesting things, e.g. some discussion of Conway's Law. The book ends with a very odd criticism of some works of landscape architecture, and then photographs of some of the author's sculptures.
Read
August 22, 2020Tufte does tend to repeat himself across the canon, which I don't really mind so much necessarily since I always have this anxiety when I read about whether or not I really grasped what was being communicated.
I think what I most want to see is a Tufte megaindex that curates the canon and highlights the best place to go for various topics, e.g. Beautiful Evidence for sparklines, Visual Explanations for small multiples, Envisioning Information for managing colour.
I actually like Tufte's grumpy ranting about things like PowerPoint. Seems to be a core idea of fidelity to information, quality of thought, etc. Scratching madly at it from various angles
I think what I most want to see is a Tufte megaindex that curates the canon and highlights the best place to go for various topics, e.g. Beautiful Evidence for sparklines, Visual Explanations for small multiples, Envisioning Information for managing colour.
I actually like Tufte's grumpy ranting about things like PowerPoint. Seems to be a core idea of fidelity to information, quality of thought, etc. Scratching madly at it from various angles
June 9, 2023
Another valuable and interesting Tufte offering. Substantively weakens toward its conclusion to the point I felt he felt a need to fill additional space (ironic given Tufte's views on efficiency and effectiveness of presentation). His return to the iconic attack and retreat from Moscow diagram featured in his earlier work is again noteworthy. Contrarily, the chapter on PowerPoint seems excessive in its criticism and short on corrective recommendations. A counter-argument in this regard: PowerPoint is not the culprit, but rather its misuse. Worth perusing (as all all four of his books), but falls well short of Tufte's superb The Visual Display of Quantitative Information.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 153 reviews