Tufte Articles

The first paper Data Density and Small Multiples explains how well the human eye can make distinctions on graphics. The human eye can detect hundreds of different points in 1 square inch. He goes on to talk about the deficiency of highly dense graphical datasets in current publications. Graphics that have a higher density of information on a graphic are more efficient at conveying important and complex information. The information does however, need to be well organized and though out for the graphical representation to be meaningful and easily understood. There were many examples in the paper of current efficient ways to display data. In my opinion although his theory does have validity in the fact that more information is probably more efficient to display in 1 graphic rather than many. It is very difficult to display a lot of information with such a high density without the information being confused or incomprehensible. I think many people look at large data sets and find it overwhelming, and do not bother to understand the data.

This point is well addressed in the next section of the reading in the Aesthetics paper by Tufte. His comment on “Graphical elegance is often found in simplicity of design and complexity of data”. This paper talks about different types of data and how they should be expressed. Tufte claims that there are 3 major ways of displaying data; Text, tables, and graphics. Some data is appropriately displayed using 1 or all of these methods. The integration of text and graphics is an important method of portraying data. In his paper he concocted a list of rules that successful data graphics follow to make the image clear and easy to understand.