5 ms·

Yet another poseur "designer" who clearly hasn't read Edward Tufte's books, and has made crucial mistakes such as making the graphs less accurate than they were

by snail22 12y ago

Yet another poseur "designer" who clearly hasn't read Edward Tufte's books, and has made crucial mistakes such as making the graphs less accurate than they were before and adding additional extraneous clutter (such as those extra icons) on top of the original information. Real design is supposed to make information more legible, not less, and it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with how slick or "pretty" the end result appears to be.

fastball 12y ago
"Real" design? No true scotsman.
- sp332 12y ago
  Snail22 isn't complaining that the result's not perfect. It's that it's not even moving the right direction. The new "design" is strictly worse than the original.
- eykanal 12y ago
  Replace "real" with "informative, easily interpretable, and intuitive". The point still stands.
mistermcgruff 12y ago
Tufte is only one perspective. And he's irritatingly preachy at times. Hell, this is his favorite website: http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=33.769373434837235&lon=-84.26461770614145&site=all&smap=1#.U4iaIZRdUww http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=33.769373434837... Are the folks at NOAA non-poseurs? Is the height of design just to vomit all the information on a single canvas, because Tufte thinks "our eyes can handle it?"
- leorocky 12y ago
  Tufte is only one perspective? The point is that information is more important than presentation. Making something pretty should never reduce the accessibility of the information or take away information. Mary's slides are much more informative than the redone slides. If there's a perspective that stresses pretty over getting information that's an incorrect perspective. Decluttering can increase access to information, but again it's all about getting people to get the information, not admire your ability to draw pretty icons and pick fancy colors.
avn2109 12y ago
In defense of the redesign, it has improved the data-ink ratio and removed annoying gradients/visual noise on several slides (looking particularly at the chart on slide 22 here). Though Tufte would throw a fit at those circular charts.
prepend 12y ago
I've been running into many designers who focus more on looking cool rather than information being used appropriately. Meeker did a good job of cramming tons of info and data into a concise presentation. It's probably the most data dense presentation I've seen in a long time. This seems like a case where De Cubber was just trying to change the presentation, rather than improve it. For example: "Finally, he got rid of an unnecessary color block at the top and the firm’s logo at the bottom to eliminate clutter and create some breathing space." Removing the firm logo from an analysis presentation is surreally stupid as the analysis is meant to create prestige for the firm.

by snail22 12y ago

fastball 12y ago

"Real" design? No true scotsman.

sp332 12y ago
Snail22 isn't complaining that the result's not perfect. It's that it's not even moving the right direction. The new "design" is strictly worse than the original.
eykanal 12y ago
Replace "real" with "informative, easily interpretable, and intuitive". The point still stands.

mistermcgruff 12y ago

Tufte is only one perspective. And he's irritatingly preachy at times. Hell, this is his favorite website: http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=33.769373434837235&lon=-84.26461770614145&site=all&smap=1#.U4iaIZRdUww http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=33.769373434837... Are the folks at NOAA non-poseurs? Is the height of design just to vomit all the information on a single canvas, because Tufte thinks "our eyes can handle it?"

leorocky 12y ago
Tufte is only one perspective? The point is that information is more important than presentation. Making something pretty should never reduce the accessibility of the information or take away information. Mary's slides are much more informative than the redone slides. If there's a perspective that stresses pretty over getting information that's an incorrect perspective. Decluttering can increase access to information, but again it's all about getting people to get the information, not admire your ability to draw pretty icons and pick fancy colors.

avn2109 12y ago

In defense of the redesign, it has improved the data-ink ratio and removed annoying gradients/visual noise on several slides (looking particularly at the chart on slide 22 here). Though Tufte would throw a fit at those circular charts.

prepend 12y ago

I've been running into many designers who focus more on looking cool rather than information being used appropriately. Meeker did a good job of cramming tons of info and data into a concise presentation. It's probably the most data dense presentation I've seen in a long time. This seems like a case where De Cubber was just trying to change the presentation, rather than improve it. For example: "Finally, he got rid of an unnecessary color block at the top and the firm’s logo at the bottom to eliminate clutter and create some breathing space." Removing the firm logo from an analysis presentation is surreally stupid as the analysis is meant to create prestige for the firm.