Edward Tufte

Edward Rolf Tufte

Tufte during his one day course in San Diego, 7 February 2011
Born (c. 1942)
Kansas City, Missouri
Occupation Professor, statistician
Nationality American

Edward Rolf Tufte ( /ˈtʌfti/; born 1942) is an American statistician and professor emeritus of political science, statistics, and computer science at Yale University.[1] He is noted for his writings on information design and as a pioneer in the field of data visualization.[2]

Contents

Biography

Edward Rolf Tufte was born in 1942 in Kansas City, Missouri, to Virginia Tufte and Edward E. Tufte. He grew up in Beverly Hills, California, and graduated from Beverly Hills High School.[3] 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.[4]

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.[4]

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."[5]

Work

Tufte is an expert in the presentation of informational graphics such as charts and diagrams, 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.

Information design

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.[6]

He uses the term "data-ink ratio" to argue against using excessive decoration in visual displays of quantitative information.[7] 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 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.[8]

Criticism of PowerPoint

Tufte has criticized the way Microsoft PowerPoint 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" [9] 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.[10]

Small multiple

One method Tufte encourages to allow quick visual comparison of multiple series is the Small multiple. 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 invented[11][12][13]sparklines — 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.

Sculpture

Outside his academic endeavors over the years, Tufte has created sculptures, often large outdoor metal ones[3] which were first primarily exhibited on his own rural Connecticut property. In 2010, "the man known as 'ET' ... opened a gallery, ET Modern, in New York City's art district"[14] at 11th Avenue and 20th Street.[15]

Bibliography

Tufte has written several books about using statistics to analyze political issues. A selection:

Among his works on the theory and practice of designing graphs, charts and maps are:

Additional citations

  • Brody, Richard A.; Tufte, Edward R. (March 1964). "Constituent-Congressional Communication on Fallout Shelters: The Congressional Polls". Journal of Communication 14 (1): 34–39. doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466.1964.tb02345.x. 
  • Ekman,, Paul; Tufte,, Edward R.; Archibald,, Kathleen; Brody, Richard A. (June 1966). "Coping with Cuba: Divergent Policy Preferences of State Political Leaders". The Journal of Conflict Resolution 10 (2): 180–197. 
  •   (July 1969). "Improving Data Analysis in Political Science". World Politics (Cambridge University Press) 21 (4): 641–654. doi:10.2307/2009670. JSTOR 2009670. 
  •  ; Reed, John Shelton (Winter 1969–1970). "A Note of Caution in Using Variables That Have Common Elements". The Public Opinion Quarterly 33 (4): 622–6. doi:10.1086/267756. 
  •  ; Kish, Ed L. (1970). Some statistical problems in research design. The Quantitative Analysis of Social Problems. Reading MA: Addison-Wesley. 
  • Edward R. Tufte. Reviewed work(s): Palumbo, Dennis J.; Palumbo, Dennis J. (September 1970). "Statistics in Political and Behavioral Science". Journal of the American Statistical Association 65 (331): 1414–5. doi:10.2307/2284317. 
  • Dahl, Robert; Tufte, E.R. (1973). Size and Democracy, The Politics of the smaller European democracies. Stanford CA: Stanford University. 
  •   (June 1973). "The Relationship between Seats and Votes in Two-Party Systems". The American Political Science Review 67 (2): 540–554. doi:10.2307/1958782. JSTOR 1958782. 
  • The Political Manipulation of the Economy: Influence of the Electoral Cycle on Macroeconomic Performance and Policy
  • ER Tufte - Department of Politics, Princeton Univ., mimeo, 1974
  •   (June 1974). "Electoral Reform: An Introduction". Policy Studies Journal 2 (4): 240–2. doi:10.1111/j.1541-0072.1974.tb00406.x. 
  • Lemieux, Peter H.; Kort, Fred; Pfotenhauer, David; Stewart, Philip R.; Burnham, Walter Dean; Tufte, Edward R. (March 1974). "Communications". The American Political Science Review 68 (1): 202–213. 
  •  ; Sun, Richard A. (1974). "Are there Bellwether Electoral Districts?". Public Opin Q 39 (1): 1–18. doi:10.1086/268196. 
  •   (November 1975). "Electronic Calculators and Data Analysis: A Consumer's Report on the SR-51, HP-21, HP-55, and HP-65". American Journal of Political Science 19 (4): 783–794. doi:10.2307/2110727. 
  •   (1977). "Improving Data Display". Dept. of Statistics (University of Chicago). 
  •   (March 1977). "Political Statistics for the United States: Observations on Some Major Data Sources". The American Political Science Review 71 (1): 305–314. doi:10.2307/1956972. JSTOR 1956972. 
  •   (1978). Political Control of the Economy. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press. 
  •   (January 1979). "Political Parties, Social Class, and Economic Policy Preferences". Government and Opposition 14 (1): 18–36. doi:10.1111/j.1477-7053.1979.tb00240.x. 
  • Edward R. Tufte. Reviewed work(s): Schultz, George P.; Dam, Kenneth W. (June 1979). "Economic Policy Beyond the Headlines". The American Political Science Review 73 (2): 605. 
  • Edward R. Tufte Reviewed work(s): Cohen, Jacob; Cohen, Patricia (December 1979). "Applied Multiple Regression/Correlation Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences". Journal of the American Statistical Association 74 (368): 935. doi:10.2307/2286442. 
  • Hoffman, David; Matisse, Henri; Tufte, E.R. (1987). "The computer-aided discovery of new embedded minimal surfaces". The Mathematical Intelligencer 9 (3): 8–21. doi:10.1007/BF03023947. 
  • Edward R. Tufte Reviewed work(s): Rose, Richard; Peters, Guy (June 1980). "Can Government Go Bankrupt?". The American Political Science Review 74 (2): 567–8. doi:10.2307/1960736. 
  •   (1985). Evidence Selection in Statistical Studies of Political Economy: The Distribution of Published Statistics.  Unpublished manuscript.
  •   (November 1987). "Dynamic Graphics for Data Analysis: Comment". Statistical Science 2 (4): 389–392. doi:10.1214/ss/1177013109. 
  •   (November 1988). "A Conversation with Cuthbert Daniel". Statistical Science 3 (4): 413–424. doi:10.1214/ss/1177012760. 
  •   (June 1990). "Data-Ink Maximization and Graphical Design". Oikos 58 (2): 130–144. doi:10.2307/3545420. 
  •   (1991). Dequantification in scientific visualization: Is this science or television. New Haven CO: Yale University. 
  •   (1993). "Design of a cancer atlas". National Center for Health Statistics contract report. 
  • Powsner SM, Tufte ER (August 1994). "Graphical Summary of Patient Status". Lancet 344 (8919): 386–9. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(94)91406-0. PMID 7914312. http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0140-6736(94)91406-0. 
  • Powsner SM, Tufte ER (1997). "Summarizing clinical psychiatric data". Psychiatr Serv 48 (11): 1458–61. PMID 9355175. http://ps.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/pmidlookup?view=long&pmid=9355175. 

References

  1. ^ http://www.yale.edu/polisci/people/etufte.html Yale University: Political Science: Edward Tufte
  2. ^ Yaffa, Joshua. "The Information Sage". Washington Monthly. http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/mayjune_2011/features/the_information_sage029137.php?page=1. 
  3. ^ a b Reynolds, Christopher. "ART; Onward means going upward; Edward Tufte has spent his career fighting the visually dull and flat. Even his sculpture is a leap.", Los Angeles Times, November 14, 2002. Accessed April 23, 2008. "Edward Tufte], who shares 20 acres (81,000 m2) in Cheshire, Conn., with his wife, graphic design professor Inge Druckrey, and three golden retrievers, is a 1960 graduate of Beverly Hills High School."
  4. ^ a b Mark Zachry and Charlotte Thralls, An interview with Edward R. Tufte, Technical Communication Quarterly, 2004.
  5. ^ President Obama Announces More Key Administration Posts, [1], White House Office of the Press Secretary, March 5, 2010
  6. ^ Mulrow, E.J. (2002). The Visual Display of Quantitative Information:The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. "Technometrics". Technometrics 44 (4): 400–400. doi:10.1198/tech.2002.s78. 
  7. ^ Kosslyn, Stephen Michael (2006). Graph design for the eye and mind. Oxford University Press. p. 126. ISBN 978-0195311846. 
  8. ^ Tufte, Edward. Envisioning Information. Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press, 2001. Pages 43-44.
  9. ^ "Columbia Accident Investigation Board Report Volume 1", August 2003, p. 15
  10. ^ PowerPoint Does Rocket Science--and Better Techniques for Technical Reports
  11. ^ Bissantz, Nicolas. "Sparklines, another masterpiece of Edward Tufte". Bissantz company blog. Bissantz & Company GmbH. http://www.bissantz.com/sparklines/. Retrieved 20 March 2011. 
  12. ^ Oppenheimer, Diego. "Sparklines in Excel". The Microsoft Office Blog. Microsoft Corporation. http://blogs.office.com/b/microsoft-excel/archive/2009/07/17/sparklines-in-excel.aspx?PageIndex=2. Retrieved 20 March 2011. 
  13. ^ Remlinger, Fabrice. "SourceForge Project Summary". Sparklines for Microsoft Exel. SourceForge. http://sourceforge.net/projects/sparklinesforxl/. Retrieved 20 March 2011. 
  14. ^ "The Many Faces (And Sculptures) Of Edward Tufte" by NPR Staff, June 5, 2010. Retrieved 2010-06-06.
  15. ^ Artist blog page, ETufte website. Retrieved 2010-06-30.

External links

Preceded by
John Chapline		 ACM SIGDOC Rigo Award
1992		 Succeeded by
Jay Bolter
Visualization of technical information
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