Edward Tufte
Encyclopedia
Edward Rolf Tufte is an American statistician
and professor emeritus of political science
, statistics
, and computer science
at Yale University
. He is noted for his writings on information design
and as a pioneer in the field of data visualization
.
, to Virginia Tufte
and Edward E. Tufte. He grew up in Beverly Hills, California
, and graduated from Beverly Hills High School
. He received a BA and MS in statistics from Stanford University
and a PhD in political science from Yale
. His dissertation, completed in 1968, was entitled The Civil Rights Movement and Its Opposition. He was then hired by Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School, where he taught courses in political economy and data analysis while publishing three quantitatively inclined political science books.
In 1975, while at Princeton, Tufte was asked to teach a statistics course to a group of journalists who were visiting the school to study economics. He developed a set of readings and lectures on statistical graphics
, which he further developed in joint seminars he subsequently taught with renowned statistician John Tukey
, a pioneer in the field of information design. These course materials became the foundation for his first book on information design, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information.
Tufte self-published his Visual Display in 1982, working closely with graphic designer Howard Gralla. He financed the work by taking out a second mortgage on his home. The book quickly became a commercial success and secured his transition from political scientist to information expert.
On March 5, 2010, it was announced that President Barack Obama
would appoint Tufte to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act's
Recovery Independent Advisory Panel "to provide transparency in the use of Recovery-related funds."
s and diagram
s, and is a fellow of the American Statistical Association
. Tufte has held fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation
and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences
.
Tufte's writing is important in such fields as information design
and visual literacy
, which deal with the visual communication of information. He coined the term "chartjunk
" to refer to useless, non-informative, or information-obscuring elements of quantitative information displays. Other key concepts of Tufte are the lie factor, the data-ink ratio, and the data density of a graphic.
He uses the term "data-ink ratio" to argue against using excessive decoration in visual displays of quantitative information. In Visual Display, Tufte states:
Tufte also encourages the use of data-rich illustrations with all the available data presented. When examined closely, every data point has value; when seen overall, trends and patterns can be observed. Tufte suggests these macro/micro readings be presented in the space of an eyespan, in the high resolution format of the printed page, and at the unhurried pace of the viewer's leisure. Tufte uses several historical examples to make his case including John Snow's
cholera outbreak map, Charles Joseph Minard
's Carte Figurative, early space debris
plots, and Maya Lin's
Vietnam Veterans Memorial
. For instance, the listing of the names of deceased soldiers on the black granite of Lin's sculptural memorial is shown to be more powerful as a chronological rather than as an alphabetical list. The sacrifice each individual made is thus highlighted within the overall scope of the war.
is typically used. In his essay "The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint", Tufte criticizes many properties and uses of the software:
Tufte's criticism of PowerPoint has extended to its use by NASA engineers in the events leading to the Columbia disaster
. Tufte's analysis of a representative NASA PowerPoint slide is included in a full-page sidebar entitled "Engineering by Viewgraphs" in Volume 1 (page 191) of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board's
report.
Tufte argues that the most effective way of presenting information in a technical setting, such as an academic seminar or a meeting of industry experts, is by distributing a brief written report that can be read by all participants in the first 5 to 10 minutes of the meeting. Tufte believes that this is the most efficient method of transferring knowledge from the presenter to the audience. The rest of the meeting is then devoted to discussion and debate.
. A chart with many series shown on a single pair of axes can often be easier to read when displayed as several separate pairs of axes placed next to each other. This is particularly helpful when the series are measured on quite different scales, but over the same range on the x-axis (usually time).
Tufte also inventedsparkline
s — a simple, condensed way to present trends and variation, associated with a measurement such as average temperature
or stock market
activity. These are often used as elements of a small multiple
with several lines used together. Tufte explains the sparkline as a kind of "word" that conveys rich information without breaking the flow of a sentence or paragraph made of other "words" both visual and conventional.
property. In 2010, "the man known as 'ET' ... opened a gallery, ET Modern, in New York City
's art district" at 11th Avenue and 20th Street.
Statistician
A statistician is someone who works with theoretical or applied statistics. The profession exists in both the private and public sectors. The core of that work is to measure, interpret, and describe the world and human activity patterns within it...
and professor emeritus of political science
Political science
Political Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...
, statistics
Statistics
Statistics is the study of the collection, organization, analysis, and interpretation of data. It deals with all aspects of this, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments....
, and computer science
Computer science
Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...
at Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
. He is noted for his writings on information design
Information design
Information design is the skill and practice of preparing information so people can use it with efficiency and effectiveness. Where the data is complex or unstructured, a visual representation can express its meaning more clearly to the viewer....
and as a pioneer in the field of data visualization
Data visualization
Data visualization is the study of the visual representation of data, meaning "information that has been abstracted in some schematic form, including attributes or variables for the units of information"....
.
Biography
Edward Rolf Tufte was born in 1942 in Kansas City, MissouriKansas City, Missouri
Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...
, to Virginia Tufte
Virginia Tufte
Virginia Tufte is an author and distinguished emerita professor of English at the University of Southern California. Her special fields are Milton, Renaissance poetry, and the history and grammar of English. She holds Ph.D and M.A. degrees in English literature from the University of California,...
and Edward E. Tufte. He grew up in Beverly Hills, California
Beverly Hills, California
Beverly Hills is an affluent city located in Los Angeles County, California, United States. With a population of 34,109 at the 2010 census, up from 33,784 as of the 2000 census, it is home to numerous Hollywood celebrities. Beverly Hills and the neighboring city of West Hollywood are together...
, and graduated from Beverly Hills High School
Beverly Hills High School
Beverly Hills High School is the only major public high school in Beverly Hills, California. Beverly is part of the Beverly Hills Unified School District and located on on the west side of Beverly Hills, at the...
. He received a BA and MS in statistics from Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
and a PhD in political science from Yale
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
. His dissertation, completed in 1968, was entitled The Civil Rights Movement and Its Opposition. He was then hired by Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School, where he taught courses in political economy and data analysis while publishing three quantitatively inclined political science books.
In 1975, while at Princeton, Tufte was asked to teach a statistics course to a group of journalists who were visiting the school to study economics. He developed a set of readings and lectures on statistical graphics
Statistical graphics
Statistical graphics, also known as graphical techniques, are information graphics in the field of statistics used to visualize quantitative data.- Overview :...
, which he further developed in joint seminars he subsequently taught with renowned statistician John Tukey
John Tukey
John Wilder Tukey ForMemRS was an American statistician.- Biography :Tukey was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts in 1915, and obtained a B.A. in 1936 and M.Sc. in 1937, in chemistry, from Brown University, before moving to Princeton University where he received a Ph.D...
, a pioneer in the field of information design. These course materials became the foundation for his first book on information design, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information.
Tufte self-published his Visual Display in 1982, working closely with graphic designer Howard Gralla. He financed the work by taking out a second mortgage on his home. The book quickly became a commercial success and secured his transition from political scientist to information expert.
On March 5, 2010, it was announced that President Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
would appoint Tufte to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act's
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, abbreviated ARRA and commonly referred to as the Stimulus or The Recovery Act, is an economic stimulus package enacted by the 111th United States Congress in February 2009 and signed into law on February 17, 2009, by President Barack Obama.To...
Recovery Independent Advisory Panel "to provide transparency in the use of Recovery-related funds."
Work
Tufte is an expert in the presentation of informational graphics such as chartChart
A chart is a graphical representation of data, in which "the data is represented by symbols, such as bars in a bar chart, lines in a line chart, or slices in a pie chart"...
s and diagram
Diagram
A diagram is a two-dimensional geometric symbolic representation of information according to some visualization technique. Sometimes, the technique uses a three-dimensional visualization which is then projected onto the two-dimensional surface...
s, and is a fellow of the American Statistical Association
American Statistical Association
The American Statistical Association , is the main professional US organization for statisticians and related professions. It was founded in Boston, Massachusetts on November 27, 1839, and is the second oldest, continuously operating professional society in the United States...
. Tufte has held fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation
Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation is a nonprofit corporation founded in 1937 by philanthropist Solomon R. Guggenheim and artist Hilla von Rebay. The first museum established by the foundation was the "Museum of Non-Objective Art", which was housed in rented space on Park Avenue in New York....
and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences
Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences
The Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences is an American interdisciplinary research body in Stanford, California focusing on the social sciences and humanities . Fellows are elected in a closed process, to spend a period of residence at the Center, released from other duties...
.
Information design
Information design
Information design is the skill and practice of preparing information so people can use it with efficiency and effectiveness. Where the data is complex or unstructured, a visual representation can express its meaning more clearly to the viewer....
and visual literacy
Visual literacy
Visual literacy is the ability to interpret, negotiate, and make meaning from information presented in the form of an image. Visual literacy is based on the idea that pictures can be “read” and that meaning can be communicated through a process of reading....
, which deal with the visual communication of information. He coined the term "chartjunk
Chartjunk
Chartjunk refers to all visual elements in charts and graphs that are not necessary to comprehend the information represented on the graph, or that distract the viewer from this information....
" to refer to useless, non-informative, or information-obscuring elements of quantitative information displays. Other key concepts of Tufte are the lie factor, the data-ink ratio, and the data density of a graphic.
He uses the term "data-ink ratio" to argue against using excessive decoration in visual displays of quantitative information. In Visual Display, Tufte states:
Sometimes decorations can help editorialize about the substance of the graphic. But it's wrong to distort the data measures—the ink locating values of numbers—in order to make an editorial comment or fit a decorative scheme.
Tufte also encourages the use of data-rich illustrations with all the available data presented. When examined closely, every data point has value; when seen overall, trends and patterns can be observed. Tufte suggests these macro/micro readings be presented in the space of an eyespan, in the high resolution format of the printed page, and at the unhurried pace of the viewer's leisure. Tufte uses several historical examples to make his case including John Snow's
John Snow (physician)
John Snow was an English physician and a leader in the adoption of anaesthesia and medical hygiene. He is considered to be one of the fathers of epidemiology, because of his work in tracing the source of a cholera outbreak in Soho, England, in 1854.-Early life and education:Snow was born 15 March...
cholera outbreak map, Charles Joseph Minard
Charles Joseph Minard
Charles Joseph Minard was a French civil engineer noted for his inventions in the field of information graphics.- Biography :...
's Carte Figurative, early space debris
Space debris
Space debris, also known as orbital debris, space junk, and space waste, is the collection of objects in orbit around Earth that were created by humans but no longer serve any useful purpose. These objects consist of everything from spent rocket stages and defunct satellites to erosion, explosion...
plots, and Maya Lin's
Maya Lin
Maya Ying Lin is an American artist who is known for her work in sculpture and landscape art. She is the designer of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.-Personal life:...
Vietnam Veterans Memorial
Vietnam Veterans Memorial
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is a national memorial in Washington, D.C. It honors U.S. service members of the U.S. armed forces who fought in the Vietnam War, service members who died in service in Vietnam/South East Asia, and those service members who were unaccounted for during the War.Its...
. For instance, the listing of the names of deceased soldiers on the black granite of Lin's sculptural memorial is shown to be more powerful as a chronological rather than as an alphabetical list. The sacrifice each individual made is thus highlighted within the overall scope of the war.
Criticism of PowerPoint
Tufte has criticized the way Microsoft PowerPointMicrosoft PowerPoint
Microsoft PowerPoint, usually just called PowerPoint, is a non-free commercial presentation program developed by Microsoft. It is part of the Microsoft Office suite, and runs on Microsoft Windows and Apple's Mac OS X operating system...
is typically used. In his essay "The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint", Tufte criticizes many properties and uses of the software:
- It is used to guide and to reassure a presenter, rather than to enlighten the audience;
- It has unhelpfully simplistic tables and charts, resulting from the low resolution of early computer displays;
- The outliner causes ideas to be arranged in an unnecessarily deep hierarchy, itself subverted by the need to restate the hierarchy on each slide;
- Enforcement of the audience's linear progression through that hierarchy (whereas with handouts, readers could browse and relate items at their leisure);
- Poor typography and chart layout, from presenters who are poor designers and who use poorly designed templates and default settings (in particular, difficulty in using scientific notationScientific notationScientific notation is a way of writing numbers that are too large or too small to be conveniently written in standard decimal notation. Scientific notation has a number of useful properties and is commonly used in calculators and by scientists, mathematicians, doctors, and engineers.In scientific...
); - Simplistic thinking, from ideas being squashed into bulleted lists, and stories with beginning, middle, and end being turned into a collection of disparate, loosely disguised points. This may present an image of objectivity and neutrality that people associate with science, technology, and "bullet points".
Tufte's criticism of PowerPoint has extended to its use by NASA engineers in the events leading to the Columbia disaster
Space Shuttle Columbia disaster
The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster occurred on February 1, 2003, when shortly before it was scheduled to conclude its 28th mission, STS-107, the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas and Louisiana during re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere, resulting in the death of all seven crew members...
. Tufte's analysis of a representative NASA PowerPoint slide is included in a full-page sidebar entitled "Engineering by Viewgraphs" in Volume 1 (page 191) of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board's
Columbia Accident Investigation Board
The Columbia Accident Investigation Board was convened by NASA to investigate the destruction of the Space Shuttle Columbia during STS-107 upon atmospheric re-entry on February 1, 2003. In addition to determining the cause of the accident, the panel also recommended changes that should be made...
report.
Tufte argues that the most effective way of presenting information in a technical setting, such as an academic seminar or a meeting of industry experts, is by distributing a brief written report that can be read by all participants in the first 5 to 10 minutes of the meeting. Tufte believes that this is the most efficient method of transferring knowledge from the presenter to the audience. The rest of the meeting is then devoted to discussion and debate.
Small multiple
One method Tufte encourages to allow quick visual comparison of multiple series is the Small multipleSmall multiple
Small multiples are a series of small similar pictures, making a point through repetition...
. A chart with many series shown on a single pair of axes can often be easier to read when displayed as several separate pairs of axes placed next to each other. This is particularly helpful when the series are measured on quite different scales, but over the same range on the x-axis (usually time).
Sparkline
| Sparklines U.S. stock market activity |
|||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Index | Open | February 7, 2006 | Close | Low | High |
| Dow Jones | 10796.42 | 10749.76 | 10691.97 | 10874.79 | |
| S&P 500 | 47.40 | 47.10 | 47.07 | 47.55 | |
| Nasdaq | 43.00 | 40.81 | 40.70 | 43.26 | |
Tufte also inventedsparkline
Sparkline
A sparkline is a type of information graphic characterized by its small size and high data density. Sparklines present trends and variations associated with some measurement, such as average temperature or stock market activity, in a simple and condensed way...
s — a simple, condensed way to present trends and variation, associated with a measurement such as average temperature
Temperature
Temperature is a physical property of matter that quantitatively expresses the common notions of hot and cold. Objects of low temperature are cold, while various degrees of higher temperatures are referred to as warm or hot...
or stock market
Stock market
A stock market or equity market is a public entity for the trading of company stock and derivatives at an agreed price; these are securities listed on a stock exchange as well as those only traded privately.The size of the world stock market was estimated at about $36.6 trillion...
activity. These are often used as elements of a small multiple
Small multiple
Small multiples are a series of small similar pictures, making a point through repetition...
with several lines used together. Tufte explains the sparkline as a kind of "word" that conveys rich information without breaking the flow of a sentence or paragraph made of other "words" both visual and conventional.
Sculpture
Outside his academic endeavors over the years, Tufte has created sculptures, often large outdoor metal ones which were first primarily exhibited on his own rural ConnecticutConnecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
property. In 2010, "the man known as 'ET' ... opened a gallery, ET Modern, in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
's art district" at 11th Avenue and 20th Street.
External links
- Edward Tufte's website
- The Data Artist
- Intelligent Designs Article in Stanford University's alumni magazine
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art Pen and Parchment - The Beautiful Evidence of Medieval Drawings video 47 min
- The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint Presented in the Form of a PowerPoint Presentation
- Representation and Misrepresentation: Tufte and the Morton Thiokol Engineers on the Challenger criticizes Tufte's analysis of NASA graphics in Visual Explanations
- Ivy League Rock and Roll - A day with Edward Tufte Review of a Tufte seminar, including discussion of his work
- Art Directors Club biography, portrait and images of work
- A review of Edward Tufte's 'Beautiful Evidence'