Talk:Edward Tufte

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page.
Biography Portal
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the project's quality scale. [FAQ]

Please rate the article and, if you wish, leave comments here regarding your assessment or the strengths and weaknesses of the article.

Contents

[edit] Became well-known because of PowerPoint essay??

Tufte became well-known by publishing his harsh criticism of Microsoft PowerPoint.

I am certain that he was extremely well-known, even revered, in the graphic design community well before his PowerPoint essay. I believe it was The Visual Display of Quantitative Information that put him on the map. Anyone know for sure? If not, I'll do some research. -- Worrydream 06:10, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

VDQI was certainly a lot more commercially successful that his earlier work on Political Economy, which was very good, BTW. The criticism of the low standard of graphics facilitated by the ubiquity of Powerpoint, besides being valid, had the effect of bringing a whole new potential readership to his wonderful books. I think the article doesn't need have any hard-to-verify material about what did or did not make his reputation in any audience. DCDuring 14:22, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

  • It's hard to imagine that the step from statistics to VDQI could compare to a later step. Ads for it in the NYT Book Review reproduced the stunning retreat-from-Moscow graph, which i studied there and which led me to inquire after the book at the pub lib and (IIRC) their purchasing it.
    --Jerzy•t 21:54, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
His 1990 book, Envisioning Information, was what split the universe open and most designers joined the cult. Tufte is God. --Knulclunk 22:58, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pronunciation

Can someone who knows put information about how to pronounce "Tufte" on the page? Capybara 08:07, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I have added in IPA the pronunciation /ˈtʌf.ti/, my inexpert and RP-biased interpretation of Tufte's answer "TUFF-tee". I have used the standard entities. -- merriam 03:18, 2005 Mar 5 (UTC)

[edit] Right Guggenheim Foundation?

From the article:

He is a fellow of the American Statistical Association and has held fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Center for Advanced Studies in Behavioral Sciences.

Here "Guggenheim Foundation" links to Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. I guess what was really meant is the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. — Tobias Bergemann 14:08, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

So fix it. WP:BOLD Sbwoodside 19:25, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
You could have fixed it, sbwoodside. Because, you didn't, I did. DCDuring 14:25, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Criticism of PowerPoint

There's a certain irony in the fact that bulleted text is used to convey the nature of Tufte's critique of PowerPoint, isn't there?--Ggbroad 01:09, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that's cute. Although to be fair, as used here this application may be one of the least arguable... Baccyak4H (Yak!) 20:10, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Tufte's criticism of PowerPoint has been skewered by Don Norman -- http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/in_defense_of_p.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.244.5.30 (talk) 18:12, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Removed misrepresentation of Tufte's POV

The quote from the article "Tufte argues strongly against the inclusion of any decoration in visual presentations of information" is a misrepresentation of his POV. In the citation request: Edward Tufte. "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information". Graphics Press, 2001. ISBN 0961392142. Chapters 5 and 6 in particular was provided as the source.

On page 13 of the book, one of the bullet items under "Graphical displays should" list "Serve a reasonably clear purpose: descriptions, exploration, tabulation, or decoration." On page 59 "Sometimes decoration can help editorialize about the substance of the graphic".

There needs to be a real quote here if someone wants to piggyback a controversial POV on the name of Edward Tufte. Oicumayberight 03:24, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Strill at Yale?

His Yale personal page is now simply a lk to [http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/ his publishing house, i guess.
--Jerzy•t 21:48, 4 September 2007 (UTC)