3 ms·

I've put in a request to my boss to attend his one day seminar last year. However, recent reviews of attendees say his views haven't caught up with modern times

by hrabago 13y ago

I've put in a request to my boss to attend his one day seminar last year. However, recent reviews of attendees say his views haven't caught up with modern times and he just sticks to visualization techniques from years ago.

thrush 13y ago
I recommend getting his books, or just The Visual Display of Information (http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/books_vdqi http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/books_vdqi) if you don't want to go a seminar.
- haberman 13y ago
  Just to put in a contrary opinion, I was really disappointed in this book and I don't understand the praise it gets. Here's my extensive review on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/review/R11NYC3OE3LBE http://www.amazon.com/review/R11NYC3OE3LBE
  - Silhouette 13y ago
    Personally, I came to very different conclusions. I found the book thought-provoking, and while your criticisms seem to be factually accurate, so was the original material you were criticising in each case I checked. I am upvoting you anyway, because we should never take things for granted just because someone famous said them, and because I appreciate that you took the time to make a careful and reasonable argument even if I personally disagree with it.
    - haberman 13y ago
      I am really curious to know what you took from this book. I am really confused about why people like it so much. For example, do you like Tufte's box plot? Do you like his revised bar chart? Do you strive, in your own graphs, to "erase redundant data-ink" in the way that Tufte advocates?
      - Silhouette 13y ago
        I read the book not long after it was first published and relatively early in my career. What I found useful was not the spartan presentation. I do a lot of custom UI and data visualisation work these days, but even my plainest designs don't tend to be as extreme as many of Tufte's examples. However, numerous projects I've worked on have been influenced by his underlying themes, like avoiding misleading presentation and unnecessary clutter, using graphics to convey patterns and relationships that wouldn't stand out from the raw data, and most of all how effective a customised or completely original presentation style can be depending on the nature of the data and what you're trying to illustrate. Maybe if I read the book for the first time today I'd regard a lot of the ideas as obvious or trivial, just as I don't need to read another article on different types of colour scheme or how to choose well-matched fonts any more. For on-line use, where we have tools like colour and animation and interaction readily available, I certainly do things very differently. However, a lot of the way I look at data visualisation and graphical illustration today was no doubt shaped by reading Tufte early on, and so I give him the credit I feel is due.
dmead 13y ago
i did the day long seminar a few years ago. it's interesting and engaging to watch, but it's mostly alot of hot air.
Barnaby3000 13y ago
I went to one of his seminars last year and I really enjoyed it. Yes, some of the material is old but he did a section on how you should get rid of powerpoint and start using slides that look like webpages. People understand how webpages work and can quickly grab the information they want and it doesn't lull them to sleep like a powerpoint. He also said that baseball box scores on ESPN might be one of the best data representations. After you've seen one box score, you automatically get it from then on out.
ternaryoperator 13y ago
I would agree with that characterization. He didn't present principles of design, or anything you could walk away with and apply. He showed various examples of design, said what he liked about them, intermingling snarky, off-the-cuff remarks. (He hates Microsoft, as he pointed out multiple times.) In addition, there was a lot of personal anecdotes that felt like self-agrandizement. What was good about it was that an occasional comment was thought-provoking. And the price of the seminar was not a whole lot more than the retail price of his books, which were given to all attendees. So it felt like a good return on the investment. But in terms of pure instruction, it was indeed disappointing.
sologoub 13y ago
I attended a seminar a few years back. The books are great, but I actually really enjoyed his commentary on the designs. He really explains well why certain designs work well for a given purpose and fail miserably at other purposes. For example, the Minard chart[1] works exceptionally well to convey the loss of life in Napoleon's campaign in Russia. However, if you may not be able to apply this type of chart to a typical dashboard as easily. Tufte does a great job explaining exactly what makes Minard's visualization work so well. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Minard.png http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Minard.png
- phy6 13y ago
  Many things he shows are 'clever' and have a high density of meaning, but it doesn't mean it's intuitive. Here's an admittedly elitist view: If _We_, HN readers, think its clever or neat, it's probably over the heads of the average audience.

by hrabago 13y ago

thrush 13y ago

I recommend getting his books, or just The Visual Display of Information (http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/books_vdqi http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/books_vdqi) if you don't want to go a seminar.

haberman 13y ago
Just to put in a contrary opinion, I was really disappointed in this book and I don't understand the praise it gets. Here's my extensive review on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/review/R11NYC3OE3LBE http://www.amazon.com/review/R11NYC3OE3LBE
- Silhouette 13y ago
  Personally, I came to very different conclusions. I found the book thought-provoking, and while your criticisms seem to be factually accurate, so was the original material you were criticising in each case I checked. I am upvoting you anyway, because we should never take things for granted just because someone famous said them, and because I appreciate that you took the time to make a careful and reasonable argument even if I personally disagree with it.
  - haberman 13y ago
    I am really curious to know what you took from this book. I am really confused about why people like it so much. For example, do you like Tufte's box plot? Do you like his revised bar chart? Do you strive, in your own graphs, to "erase redundant data-ink" in the way that Tufte advocates?
    - Silhouette 13y ago
      I read the book not long after it was first published and relatively early in my career. What I found useful was not the spartan presentation. I do a lot of custom UI and data visualisation work these days, but even my plainest designs don't tend to be as extreme as many of Tufte's examples. However, numerous projects I've worked on have been influenced by his underlying themes, like avoiding misleading presentation and unnecessary clutter, using graphics to convey patterns and relationships that wouldn't stand out from the raw data, and most of all how effective a customised or completely original presentation style can be depending on the nature of the data and what you're trying to illustrate. Maybe if I read the book for the first time today I'd regard a lot of the ideas as obvious or trivial, just as I don't need to read another article on different types of colour scheme or how to choose well-matched fonts any more. For on-line use, where we have tools like colour and animation and interaction readily available, I certainly do things very differently. However, a lot of the way I look at data visualisation and graphical illustration today was no doubt shaped by reading Tufte early on, and so I give him the credit I feel is due.

dmead 13y ago

i did the day long seminar a few years ago. it's interesting and engaging to watch, but it's mostly alot of hot air.

Barnaby3000 13y ago

I went to one of his seminars last year and I really enjoyed it. Yes, some of the material is old but he did a section on how you should get rid of powerpoint and start using slides that look like webpages. People understand how webpages work and can quickly grab the information they want and it doesn't lull them to sleep like a powerpoint. He also said that baseball box scores on ESPN might be one of the best data representations. After you've seen one box score, you automatically get it from then on out.

ternaryoperator 13y ago

I would agree with that characterization. He didn't present principles of design, or anything you could walk away with and apply. He showed various examples of design, said what he liked about them, intermingling snarky, off-the-cuff remarks. (He hates Microsoft, as he pointed out multiple times.) In addition, there was a lot of personal anecdotes that felt like self-agrandizement. What was good about it was that an occasional comment was thought-provoking. And the price of the seminar was not a whole lot more than the retail price of his books, which were given to all attendees. So it felt like a good return on the investment. But in terms of pure instruction, it was indeed disappointing.

sologoub 13y ago

I attended a seminar a few years back. The books are great, but I actually really enjoyed his commentary on the designs. He really explains well why certain designs work well for a given purpose and fail miserably at other purposes. For example, the Minard chart[1] works exceptionally well to convey the loss of life in Napoleon's campaign in Russia. However, if you may not be able to apply this type of chart to a typical dashboard as easily. Tufte does a great job explaining exactly what makes Minard's visualization work so well. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Minard.png http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Minard.png

phy6 13y ago
Many things he shows are 'clever' and have a high density of meaning, but it doesn't mean it's intuitive. Here's an admittedly elitist view: If _We_, HN readers, think its clever or neat, it's probably over the heads of the average audience.