TUFTE/E. I.

Envisioning Information • Edward Tufte • Graphics Press • 1990

"To envision information–and what bright and splendid visions can result–is to work at the intersection of image, word, number, art."

1. Escaping Flatland

Incorporate design strategies which sharpen information resolution, resolving the power of paper and video screen. These methods work to increase the number of dimensions that can be represented on plane surfaces and the data density (amount of information per unit area).

Eliminate the unnecessary:

With savage pictures fill their gaps,

And o'er unhabitable downs,

Place elephants for want of towns

--Jonathan Swift, indictment of 17th century cartographers

Integrate text and graphic into a coherent whole

Double functioning elements
View from unusual (and useful) visual dimension

Encourage a diversity of individual viewer styles and rates of editing, personalizing and understanding of the perceiver.

Designs so good they are invisible, vs. chart junk; the ducks of information design. Clarity and simplicity, not simple-mindedness

Local comparisons of small images

Information design is not poster design. Rather it is "self-effacing displays intensely committed to rich data."

2. Micro/Macro Readings

An unconventional design strategy: to clarify, add detail.

Repeated graphical elements (can have two purposes)

Micro/macro designs enforce both local and global comparisons and, at the same time, avoid the disruption of context switching.
High density designs allow viewers to select, narrate, recast and personalize data for their own use. Control of the information is given over to the viewers, not the editors.

"...Where simplicity cannot work, simpleness results. Blatant simplification means bland architecture. Less is a bore."--Robert Venturi

"God is in the details," said Mies van der Rohe, capturing the essential quality of micro/macro performances.

3. Layering and Separation

1+1=3 or more

Proper relationship among information layers (relevant in proportion and in harmony to ideas/data)

Figure-ground, interaction effects

Avoid moiré effects and dark grids, chart junk

Show causality

Capture multivariate complexity

4. Small Multiples

Small multiples visually enforce comparisons of change, of the differences among objects, of the scope of alternatives.

Use the smallest effective differences

5. Color and Information

Color can be a strategy to label, to measure, to represent reality, or to enliven

Color gently defines to make a clear statement about the information, not the color itself

Placement of strong contrasting colors and white in close proximity usually produces unpleasant, vibrating results.

Color can improve information resolution of computer screens, by softening the background and defining edges

6. Narratives of Space and Time

Painting four-variable narrations of space-time onto flatland combines two familiar designs, the map and the time-series (schedules).

It is advisable not to serpentine data

Space/time grids convey both distance covered as well as the time necessary.

Dance notation: symbolically encoded because "any serious system of movement notation avoids words because they are a strong deterrent to international communication."

--Ann Hutchinson Guest, Dance Notation : The Process of Recording Movement on Paper (London, 1984)

Frustrating to try to preserve fleeting steps and emotions. Use of small multiples.
Essential dilemma of narrative design--how to reduce the magnificent four-dimensional reality of time and three-space into little marks on flatlands.

Edward Tufte's book, Envisioning Information, is the second in his series of books of compilations of the best and worst of information design/visual representation. What Mr. Tufte does (and he does it very well indeed) is to take "case studies" of specific design examples, analyze them and tie this in with philosophical comment and design strategies. He continues his studies of motion in time with examples of train schedules, smog schedules, and the movement of planets, among others. Of particular interest to me as a dancer was his inclusion of dance notation: the frustrating efforts to preserve fleeting steps and emotions on paper. I also enjoyed his word inventions, "chartjunk" and "colorjunk," which refer to garish or misleading examples of information and color. Mr. Tufte approaches graphic design from a classic, modernist viewpoint, in that it should be "invisible" relative to the information conveyed, a useful premise.

The drawbacks of the book are few. One could criticize some of the examples he has chosen, such as an extremely complex Indonesian railway schedule, as being too difficult to decipher within a short time frame (although chockfull of information and seemingly well-designed). Envisioning Information is certainly not meant as a primer on graphic information design for undergraduates, nor yet as a heavily theoretical piece. Mr. Tufte does not touch on intentionally misleading charts, or purposefully skewed information and the ethics of these issues. But perhaps, he did not wish to write that sort of book, preferring instead to focus purely on graphic and visual aspects.

This is a beautiful coffee-table book, one which could inspire conversation and comment, as well as educate aesthetically. It adds to an accumulated knowledge of graphic design and strategies, and would be particularly beneficial in application to informational web site design.

Book Review • Lisa Valdez • HU 520 • February 1999