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That's just following Edward Tufte's maxim to minimize chart junk. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chartjunk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chartjunk Any of you on

That's just following Edward Tufte's maxim to minimize chart junk. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chartjunk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chartjunk Any of you on HN that aren't familiar with "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information" should give it a read (and the rest of his books).

eps 13y ago
> and the rest of his books I find his books to be a bit too light on the content. All of them combined would've made a great book that would still be of a reasonable thickness, but he is self-published and he makes his living from lectures and book sales, so he's probably not too interested in that.
- MJR 13y ago
  His books were written over 24 years so they idea of writing one great book is just not a practical one. He made his living as a professor not simply self-publishing, lectures and book sales. For someone who evangelizes effective presentation of information, creating a CliffsNotes or Nutshell version just completely misses the point of his work.
  - phren0logy 13y ago
    I can't agree. The rest of those books contain roughly the same amount of actual information as his first. I went to his workshop, in which he seemed to be showing as much restraint as he could to not talk exclusively about his lawn sculptures. Tufte has some great ideas, but would benefit from a ruthless editor. As a guy who's self-published, he does not get the benefit of that kind of feedback.
- peterjs 13y ago
  "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information" is not a howto guide. It's not a list of 101 tips and tricks for drawing charts, where one would wish for 200 tips instead. It's a framework, a theory, of how to think and reason about visualizing information. It is something you can take and apply in many different situations. Then the question really is, is there anything wrong with the theory it conveys?
- tel 13y ago
  I own all of his books and have read through them several times. I see them as filling a role somewhere between a guide and a listing taken together. It's easy enough to get 95% of the practical value by just reading one of them, but the remaining 3 provide a number of examples which can help to provide a broad perspective on Tufte's ideas while inspiring your own interpretation of them. If you just want to make better charts, buy, a from memory guess, Envisioning Information. It provides most of the basics of The Visual Display of Quantitative Information but develops the ideas a little further and provides better, more modern examples. If you think it's a cool topic then buy them all because they're all pretty nice books.
bchjam 13y ago
It provides steps to get from the junk to something relatively clean. Many people could benefit from following that, but software that doesn't spit out the junk in the first place would be better

eps 13y ago

> and the rest of his books I find his books to be a bit too light on the content. All of them combined would've made a great book that would still be of a reasonable thickness, but he is self-published and he makes his living from lectures and book sales, so he's probably not too interested in that.

MJR 13y ago
His books were written over 24 years so they idea of writing one great book is just not a practical one. He made his living as a professor not simply self-publishing, lectures and book sales. For someone who evangelizes effective presentation of information, creating a CliffsNotes or Nutshell version just completely misses the point of his work.
- phren0logy 13y ago
  I can't agree. The rest of those books contain roughly the same amount of actual information as his first. I went to his workshop, in which he seemed to be showing as much restraint as he could to not talk exclusively about his lawn sculptures. Tufte has some great ideas, but would benefit from a ruthless editor. As a guy who's self-published, he does not get the benefit of that kind of feedback.
peterjs 13y ago
"The Visual Display of Quantitative Information" is not a howto guide. It's not a list of 101 tips and tricks for drawing charts, where one would wish for 200 tips instead. It's a framework, a theory, of how to think and reason about visualizing information. It is something you can take and apply in many different situations. Then the question really is, is there anything wrong with the theory it conveys?
tel 13y ago
I own all of his books and have read through them several times. I see them as filling a role somewhere between a guide and a listing taken together. It's easy enough to get 95% of the practical value by just reading one of them, but the remaining 3 provide a number of examples which can help to provide a broad perspective on Tufte's ideas while inspiring your own interpretation of them. If you just want to make better charts, buy, a from memory guess, Envisioning Information. It provides most of the basics of The Visual Display of Quantitative Information but develops the ideas a little further and provides better, more modern examples. If you think it's a cool topic then buy them all because they're all pretty nice books.

bchjam 13y ago

It provides steps to get from the junk to something relatively clean. Many people could benefit from following that, but software that doesn't spit out the junk in the first place would be better