Beautiful Evidence

Design / Information / Concept

Mon, 24 Sep 07 17:32:12 -0500

Keywords: Design / Information / Concept
Text: Tufte's "sparklines" - "small, high-resolution graphics usually embedded in a full context of words, numbers, images. Sparklines are *datatwords*: data-intense, design-simple, word-sized graphics."
"*wordlike* graphics, with an intensity of visual distinctions comparable to words and letters."
Date: 09/24/07
ID: 11275

Information / Design

Mon, 24 Sep 07 18:35:52 -0500

Keywords: Information / Design
Text: Tufte's "First Principle for the analysis and presentation of data" -- "Show comparisons, contrasts, differences."
Second Principle: "Show causality, mechanism, explanation, systematic structure."
Third: "Show multivariate data; that is, show more than 1 or 2 variables." ("Nearly all the interesting worlds (physical, biological, imaginary, human) we seek to understand are inevitably multivariate in nature ... [Include conditions such as] interaction effects, multiple causes, multiple effects, causal sequences, sources of bias" etc. (129)
Fourth: "Completely integrate words, numbers, images, diagrams." (Aim for "a broad, pluralistic, problem-directed view of what constitutes the scope of relevant evidence." "A deeper understanding of human understanding of human behavior may well result from integrating a diversity of evidence, *whatever it takes to explain something*")
Fifth: "Thoroughly describe the evidence. Provide a detailed title, indicate the authors and sponsors, document the data sources, show complete measurement scales, point out relevant issues."
Sixth: "Analytical presentations ultimately stand or fall depending on the quality, relevance, and integrity of their content." ("The most effective way to improve a presentation is to get better content.")
Date: 09/24/07
ID: 11813

Culture

Mon, 24 Sep 07 18:36:43 -0500

Keywords: Culture
Text: Tufte: "Human activities ... take place in intensely comparative and multivariate contexts filled with causal ideas: intervention, purpose, responsibility, consequence, explanation, intention, action, prevention, diagnosis, strategy, decision, influence, planning." (139)
Date: 09/24/07
ID: 11825

Narrative / Spirituality

Mon, 24 Sep 07 18:37:25 -0500

Keywords: Narrative / Spirituality
Text: Flaubert:
"The rage for wanting to conclude is one of the most deadly and most fruitless manias to befall humanity. Each religion and each philosophy has pretended to have God to itself, to measure the infinite, and to know the recipe for happiness. What arrogance and what madness! I see, to the contrary, that the greatest geniuses and the greatest works have never concluded."
In Correspondance, Vol. V (1929)
quoted by Tufte
Date: 09/24/07
ID: 11848

Teaching / Education / Information / Media: PowerPoint

Mon, 24 Sep 07 18:42:01 -0500

Keywords: Teaching / Education / Information / Media: PowerPoint
Text: Tufte on the "core ideas of teaching":
"explanation, reasoning, finding things out, questioning, content, evidence, credible authority not patronizing authoritarianism"
he notes that all of these are "contrary to the cognitive style of PowerPoint"
Date: 09/24/07
ID: 11860