Edward R. Tufte > Quotes

“Design cannot rescue failed content.”
― Edward R. Tufte

“What about confusing clutter? Information overload? Doesn't data have to be "boiled down" and "simplified"? These common questions miss the point, for the quantity of detail is an issue completely separate from the difficulty of reading. Clutter and confusion are failures of design, not attributes of information.”
― Edward R. Tufte, Envisioning Information

“Above all else show the data.”
― Edward R. Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information

“If the statistics are boring, then you've got the wrong numbers.”
― Edward Tufte

“Graphical excellence is that which gives to the viewer the greatest number of ideas in the shortest time with the least ink in the smallest space.”
― Edward R. Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information

“Clutter and confusion are failures of design, not attributes of information.”
― Edward Tufte

“PowerPoint is like being trapped in the style of early Egyptian flatland cartoons rather than using the more effective tools of Renaissance visual representation.”
― Edward R. Tufte, Beautiful Evidence

“It is not how much empty space there is, but rather how it is used. It is not how much information there is, but rather how effectively it is arranged.”
― Edward Tufte

“To clarify, *add* data.”
― Edward R. Tufte

“I have stared long enough at the glowing flat rectangles of computer screens. Let us give more time for doing things in the real world . . . plant a plant, walk the dogs, read a real book, go to the opera.”
― Edward Tufte

“Allowing artist-illustrators to control the design and content of statistical graphics is almost like allowing typographers to control the content, style, and editing of prose.”
― Edward R. Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information

“Cosmetic decoration, which frequently distorts the data, will never salvage an underlying lack of content.”
― Edward Tufte

“Comparisons must be enforced within the scope of the eyespan, a fundamental point occasionally forgotten in practice.”
― Edward Tufte

“Only two industries refer to their customers as 'users': computer design and drug dealing”
― Edward R. Tufte

“Small, noncomparative, highly labeled data sets usually belong in tables.”
― Edward R. Tufte

“I have stared long enough at the glowing flat rectangles of computer screens. Let us give more time for doing things in the real world . . . plant a plant, walk the dogs, read a real book, go to the opera.”
― Edward Tufte, Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative

“We shouldn’t abbreviate the truth but rather get a new method of presentation.”
― Edward Tufte

“The act of arranging information becomes an act of insight.”
― Edward R. Tufte, Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative

“Songs are not merely singles--unique, one-time, de novo happenings--rather, music and music-makers share a pattern, a context, a history.”
― Edward R. Tufte, Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative

“For centuries, the profound, central issue in depicting information has been how to represent three or more dimensions of data on the two-dimensional display surfaces of walls, stone, canvas, paper, and, recently, computer screens.”
― Edward R. Tufte, Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative

“The best graphics are about the useful and important, about life and death, about the universe. Beautiful graphics do not traffic with the trivial.”
― Edward R. Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information

“We thrive in information-thick worlds because of our marvelous and everyday capacities to select, edit, single out, structure, highlight, group, pair, merge, harmonize, synthesize, focus, organize, condense, reduce, boil down, choose, categorize, catalog, classify, list, abstract, scan, look into, idealize, isolate, discriminate, distinguish, screen, pigeonhole, pick over, sort, integrate, blend, inspect, filter, lump, skip, smooth, chunk, average, approximate, cluster, aggregate, outline, summarize, itemize, review, dip into, flip through, browse, glance into, leaf through, skim, refine, enumerate, glean, synopsize, winnow the wheat from the chaff, and separate the sheep from the goats.”
― Edward R. Tufte, Envisioning Information

“Television-disease: thin substance, contempt for the audience and the content, short attention span, and over-produced styling.”
― Edward R. Tufte, Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative

“Accidental communalities in design can easily induce false groupings in the eyes of viewers, who are often busy searching for visual hints that help to boil down, organize, group, and otherwise make sense...”
― Edward R. Tufte, Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative

“Make all visual distinctions as subtle as possible... small differences allow more differences.”
― Edward R. Tufte, Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative

“Readers of pictorial instructions often have to spend too much of their time coordinating small steps buried in large blocks of text with small steps buried in a long sequence of illustrations. It is all as heavy-handed as Euclid...”
― Edward R. Tufte, Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative

“It is better to violate any principle than to place graceless or inelegant marks on paper.”
― Edward R. Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information by Edward R. Tufte 2nd edition

“Why should we fail to be rigorous about evidence and its presentation just because the evidence is part of a public dialogue, or is meant for the news media?”
― Edward R. Tufte, Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative

“Words and pictures belong together.”
― Edward R. Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information by Edward R. Tufte

“Allowing artist-illustrators to control... statistical graphics is almost like allowing typographers to control the content, style, and editing of prose.”
― Edward R. Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information