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Edward Tufte Workshop—Presenting Data and Information
On Tuesday, many of the first year MID-ers attended a mapping and information
visualization workshop by Edward Tufte. In a large hotel conference room,
Tufte lectured to hundreds of individuals on how to create meaningful visuals- an important skill for industrial designers. He stressed the need for them to be content-driven. He said “There is no such thing as information overload, only bad design.” He continued to emphasize that everyone reads detailed charts and graphics everyday, from baseball statistics to newspaper visuals to the weather. Just because we went to work or school does not mean that we have become incompetent. There is no need to dumb down the material. There is a need, however, to improve its design.
Tufte said that we should do “whatever it takes” to get the information across to our audience. Make sure every arrow and linking line carries information because they are actions. Don't place boxes around information because it only creates unnecessary emphasis and distracts the reader from understanding the content. Avoid looking over-designed, over-produced, and thin by reporting the content without all the additional fluff.
He ended the workshop by providing the attendees with his words of wisdom:
maximize content-reasoning and minimize overly designed elements that require format-thinking time of your reader. Content is what gives you credibility, so let the information speak for itself. If you don’t have good content, get better content.
For more information on Edward Tufte and his workshops, visit his website: http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/.
