After finishing up Beautiful Evidence, I was impressed enough to check out one of Edward Tufte’s earlier works. Envisioning Information is mostly targeted to the display of complex, multi-dimensional data within the constraints of our merely 2-dimensional presentation media like paper and computer screens.
While I really liked it, it was missing some things I really liked seeing in Beautiful Evidence. For one, there didn’t seem to be as much original material in this book. Tufte seemed to stay in the background more, displaying best practices and analyzing effective examples. What I really missed was his criticism and revisions of faltering works. As he points out, comparing and contrasting is one of the purposes of good analytic design–I don’t think he took enough opportunity to do so. Some other minor quibbles would be the omni-present transporation timetables, and some recycled graphics from chapter to chapter.
On the upside, I really liked two of the more user-oriented chapters. ‘Layering and Separation’ was all about human perception. It branched off from Albersian ideas about how sometimes 1+1=3, moir?© patterns, and other unintended effects. Tufte makes good use of examples and suggests some corrections in that chapter. Seeing the clumsy “before” and the polished “after” versions is a huge help. The other section I liked was ‘Color and Information’, dedicated to use of color in distinguishing marks and values, and the ways color be a cognitive aid (and distraction).
I wish Tufte could work more quickly. As it is, his books take quite a while to work on (understandably so). I’m looking forward to what he’ll come up with another 6-7 years down the line.
Mark Larson 