Edward Tufte recently posted a new chapter from his upcoming book Beautiful Evidence. The chapter, “Corrupt Techniques in Evidence Presentation: Effects without Causes, Cherry-Picking, Punning, and Chartjunk” will be up for about a month for preview, review, and comments. The chapter is a great read and it looks great (nice page design and typesetting). Tufte goes off about using passive voice to evade (as evidenced in the 9/11 Commission report), using bulleted lists for promoting effects without causes (and how Powerpoint clouds thinking, as exhibited in the Columbia Accident Investigation Board report), economisting (creating a pseudo-mathematical model), and how chartjunk (useless graphics and bureaucracy) hides evidence.
I really like Tufte’s work and I think his new chapter is well worth the time to check out. I only wish people understood his work and “got the point” better though. I remember reading some of Tufte’s earlier work in my undergraduate coursework, but the professor I had at the time totally missed the point on Tufte’s message. We were using his advice and suggestions to make Powerpoint slides of all things. Ugh!
If you haven’t taken Tufte’s day course in Presenting Data and Information, go take it!! Hands down, it was the best class I’ve ever attended and genuinely changed my perspective of how I think about my work and the world, and as a result, I’m producing much better quality work in my design, in my writing, in my thinking. He finds some way to work the world all together, nature, history, mathematics, technology, art, design, business, all into one integrated picture. I’ve recommended the course to a number of friends and coworkers who have taken me up on it, and the consensus is there, the experience in the course is so worth the time and money.
