From: Anabella Wewer <anabella-AT-blkbx.com>
Date: 06 Sep 2006 13:14:08 UTC   (10:14:08 AM in author's locale)
To: "The Graphics List" <graphics-AT-lists.graphicslist.org>

On Sep 6, 2006, at 9:41 AM, Michael Brady wrote:

>
> After reading The Visual Display of Qualitative Information, I
> thought Tufte's focus on clarity and getting rid of "chartjunk" was
> very astute, but I thought his extremely minimalist solutions to
> some charts were a tad to astringent and spare. I have come to the
> conclusion after working with authors who want some of that
> "chartjunk" (like horizontal lines through the bar chart to make it
> easier to read values, or putting the numerical values above the
> separate bars, etc.), that some of that stuff is necessary as a
> redundant framing device for the reader to quickly grasp what's
> being displayed ("Okay, I know this thing. It's a bar chart, so
> I'll read it as such"--i.e., it's not a map or a floorplan).
> Moreover, computer UI principles indicate that some redundancy is
> good and expected, so that the same diagram can be comprehended for
> the same result by different people with different modes of
> grasping the diagram.

I agree. I fought against it for a while, but have had to "give in".
I have managed, however, to tone it down... very subtle grid lines
that don't interfere with the information, that you almost don't see
unless you are looking for them. That seems to work well.

>
> Holmes's work, in contrast, uses those cutesy illustrations, but in
> fairness to him, he doesn't actually distort the presentation by
> incorrectly scaling little bales of cotton or trucks (as Tufte
> admonishes against doing). But Holmes relies on what I regard as
> the falsity of injecting the extraneous ingredient of "fun" into a
> graphic.

Interesting... I am generally against "cuteness" and a lot of his
stuff seems that way. Will have to pay more attention, though. As I
said, I have been a casual observer of his work, and that not even
knowing it was his.

Anabella

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