Edward Tufte reading summaries

Envisioning Information

Reading summary 1

The first chapter of Tufte’s book discusses the challenges of representing data visually as encountered by designers throughout history, and specifically addresses the issue of escaping what he calls “flatland,” or a mode of communicating data that dryly strips it of clarity or import. He provides several examples of visualizations which escape this mundanity with varying degrees of success, and in so doing shows off the common missteps or dangerous traps that can be found by information designers when trying to add excitement to otherwise unexciting data sets.

I primarily enjoyed the various diagrams and images Tufte included to illustrate his points, and found the vast majority of them altogether confusing or unclear. I liked his use of three-dimensional elements like the pyramidal foldout or pop-up section, which surprised and intrigued me. I was also very curious about the rearranged versions of the Periodic Table of the Elements portrayed on page 14, as this was a subject I had independently researched before. I was interested previously in different ways to arrange these elements which would stay true to their different attributes (atomic weight, chemical properties, element families, et cetera). If I had a better understanding of chemistry or physics, this might be a task I’d undertake.

I’m excited to continue reading Tufte’s book, as this first chapter was well-researched but provided few rather excellent examples, in my opinion, of information design done well. Hopefully future sections of the book will include the very best possible examples of information design layouts, such that I will be interested enough to stop reading and instead study the included graphics instead.

Reading summary 2

The micro/macro element of information graphics is, again, rather interesting to me, as I consider the strongest examples of these designs to relay important information both at a glance and after careful study. I liked the diagram of Earth’s satellites included on pages 48 and 49, because the juxtaposition between the two helped to emphasize the relative altitude of, say, the global positioning satellites. It also illustrated the intimidating swarm of equipment that orbits a bit closer to the atmosphere, and lent a sense of awe at the chaotic complexity of our artificial satellite systems.

One issue I find with information graphics which rely on heavy macro elements is that I, doubtless along with many other people, have a difficult time fully appreciating scale from a distance or at a glance. I am challenged to find meaning in The Vietnam Memorial expounded upon in Tufte’s second chapter, for example, when viewing it from a certain distance. I lose my sense of scale and forget how many names might be included on any one section of the massive wall. As Stalin so insensitively put it, one death is considered a tragedy while the death of millions becomes a statistic.

The human mind probably isn’t programmed to comprehend numbers like 58,000, and that’s why I’ve always had difficulty interpreting statistics that hinge on astronomically large numbers. The Vietnam Memorial carries an impact even from a distance, no doubt, but the “micro” analysis of its contained data is, of course, what ties everything together.

Reading summary 3

In this chapter of Tufte’s book, I was particularly struck by his inclusion of ways to improve tabled information like the train timetable on pages 54 and 55. Obviously his alterations represent a massive improvement in legibility and obviousness, but I was intrigued by ways to go even further. I still found some difficulty myself scanning the table for departure or arrival times (an issue I find with public transportation schedules in real life), and I considered how a chronological organization of the data would play. I would feel more comfortable reading the arrival and departure times almost like an iCal week view of events with color and column coordination. Perhaps this is a symptom of my Apple enculturation, but I feel such an approach would be infinitely clearer. Hopefully COTA feels similarly.

Also, the lengthy hospital receipt data for the late Mrs. K_____ which extended through pages 56 and 57 presented a challenge that I feel Tufte didn’t fully address. His annotations of the information provided helped show emphasis or relative importance, but he didn’t seem to offer an alternative to the onslaught of indecipherable data. Maybe changes in type weight for larger charges or line breaks dividing individual dates or medical events would be beneficial.

Lastly, the cartography data on page 58 was curious to me, as I enjoy reading maps and observing the ways cartographers choose to relay important geographic information. The Army map of India is obviously an atrocity, and the map of Tokyo a relative breath of fresh air. I’ve read some interesting material on how different digital mapping applications (Google Maps, Mapquest, Apple Maps) choose to prioritize information based on the zoom level and contextual search results, and the topic certainly interests me. I’d like to do some work involving maps, if not in this course, then recreationally.

Reading summary 4

I found the fourth chapter only marginally less interesting than the previous chapters, but was intrigued by particular examples that Tufte provided. I spent a fair amount of time studying Lichtenstein’s mural spread on pages 70–71, and enjoyed trying to find the less obvious elements in the central mural that referenced previous works. Some of the allusions were more successful for me than others, but on the whole I found it an interesting exercise, and it kept my attention.

The most interesting and relatively confusing section of the chapter for me was the Dighton Writing Rock and its various interpretations over the centuries. I noticed that the emphasis on different elements became increasingly pronounced in more recent years, particularly the smiley-face shape within what Tufte calls the “ghost” figure at the bottom of the page. It seems like what modern interpreters emphasize as a face might not have been recognized as a face before that particular image or shape became prevalent in popular culture during the twentieth century. Maybe I’m imagining it, but I feel like the interpreters in the 1600s and 1700s hardly even included the smiley-face “ghost” figure, and that more modern ones focused almost centrally on that component.

I can’t decide whether the bar graph comprised of rivers included on page 77 is effective or completely obnoxious to the point of being entirely meritless. While a straight bar graph might have lost some of its charm or deemphasized the rivers’ relative length and complexity, it also would have more clearly shown the actual data and the relationships between the bars. I feel like some specificity is lost by including the artifice, and I would probably strip it from the graph entirely if it were up to me.

Reading summary 5

Tufte’s chapter on color in relaying information was easily one of the more interesting ones for me, as I found his use of examples both practical and relatively compelling. One of his first illustrations, demonstrating how the addition of primary colors could aid in the understanding of the Pythagorean Theorem, actually did assist my comprehension of the diagram. I also immediately thought of the art of Mondrian when I first saw the graphics, and felt vindicated when Tufte drew a similar comparison. It proved that the addition of even simple colors can take a rather dry and seemingly abstract topic and lend concreteness to a mathematical concept. I wish that all of my math textbooks in primary school had adhered to the same principles—perhaps I’d have a better understanding of fractions.

One point on which I probably disagree with Tufte is on his endorsement of color differences in computer graphics user interfaces. I feel as though his idea would have been beneficial to operating systems like Windows 95, but more modern software deals with the problem in a more elegant way. Rather than making “active” or foreground windows a reddish hue compared to, say, a blue background or “inactive” window, Mac OS X uses shadows for emphasis. Significantly, it also drains color from inactive windows and paints them in a light gray, whereas active windows are presented in their full color. Perhaps I agree with his point but only take issue with his relatively crude diagram that he uses for his example.

Lastly, I really enjoyed his examples regarding gradients for relative values, particularly as it applies to cartography like his image of the Japanese seascape. I feel the gradients would have had negligible impact in the absence of the black dividing lines, especially considering that the difference between two levels is so slight in his example. This is a principal problem with gradient-reliant information graphics, but one easily addressed with dividing lines or more dramatic levels of variation.

Reading summary 6

Many of the frustrations I have expressed in earlier reading summaries, particularly those concerned with what I found to be nearly unintelligible examples of chronological information design pieces, were partially addressed and elaborated upon in this final chapter of Tufte’s book. I enjoyed his first example of the lunar motions of Jupiter’s satellites, if for no other reason than the topic of astronomy greatly interests me. The pictorial representations spanning pages 97 and 98 served only to divulge a conceptual understanding of their observed motions rather than containing any hard data, but Tufte shows refinements and additions that help with clarity and entail complexity. The models outlined on page 99 appear overwrought and confusing to the point of absurdity, and the point is well-taken that these encourage a preoccupation with the mechanizations rather than the data they attempt to relate. However, I rather enjoyed the simple beauty of the charts on page 100, and found interesting the notion that these were stretched-out circular orbital paths.

Bus schedules have historically been the bane of my existence. I dabble little in public transportation because I find their documentation borderline inscrutable (I find that by the time I figure out which bus would work best for my schedule, it’s too late to catch it). Looking at the layouts on pages 101 and 102 only served to further my complete confusion, as I find their complexity entirely ridiculous. Later examples relying on alternating diagonal lines were no more effective. Tufte’s example of a refinement of the New York and New Haven transportation schedule represents, for me, a dramatic improvement in legibility from the bottom of page 104 to the bottom of page 105. If Columbus employed a similar schema for their bus schedule, I might save a great deal of time and gas money getting to and from campus and locations around the city.

Visual Explanations

Reading summary 8

For my independent reading assignments, I’ve chosen another of Edward Tufte’s books for its relevance and familiarity. Visual Explanations shares his other text’s graphical style and verbose writing style, and relays some similar concepts with different and equally interesting examples. The chapter on which I’ve chosen to do my eighth reading summary, and indeed my in-class presentation, is his fifth, entitled “Parallelism: Repetition and Change, Comparison and Surprise.”

Many of my comments will be repeated in my in-class presentation, but they at the very least bear repeating here. His focus on visual parallelism helps to demonstrate change and complexity by drawing out only those elements of interest or conversation from an image. It also helps users draw mental comparisons between two abstract concepts like political maps or time lapse. They oftentimes function not unlike the before-and-after images popularized by fitness pill infomercials, as in the pair of images on pages 80–1. While these cutaways seem elementary, they can relay a great deal of information regarding change, growth, or absence.

The most interesting part of this chapter was the chronological representation of rock music included on pages 90–91. Engaging enough as a standalone information graphic, Tufte shows that artists repeat as their styles or the times change around them. It lends the twentieth century of rock music a context and a history, and shows that no piece of music or pop artist stands alone throughout the decades, but rather represents one brief cultural moment during the ever-growing rock and roll evolution. Add the axis of album sales, and the information graphic takes on a whole new layer of sophistication.