Edward Rolf Tufte (IPA /ˈtʌf.ti/) (born 1942 in Kansas City, Missouri to Virginia and Edward E. Tufte), a professor emeritus of statistics, graphic design, and political economy at Yale University has been described by The New York Times as "the Leonardo da Vinci of Data". He is an expert in the presentation of informational graphics such as charts and diagrams, and is a fellow of the American Statistical Association. Tufte has held fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Center for Advanced Studies in Behavioral Sciences. 1942 (MCMXLII) was a common year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1942 calendar). ... Nickname: City of Fountains Location in Jackson, Clay, Platte, and Cass Counties in the state of Missouri. ... For the album by the Kaiser Chiefs see Employment (album) Employment is a contract between two parties, one being the employer and the other being the employee. ... In English usage, nationality is the legal relationship between a person and a country. ... Not to be confused with the NATO phonetic alphabet, which has also informally been called the “International Phonetic Alphabet”. For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words, see IPA chart for English. ... 1942 (MCMXLII) was a common year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1942 calendar). ... Nickname: City of Fountains Location in Jackson, Clay, Platte, and Cass Counties in the state of Missouri. ... Emeritus (IPA pronunciation: or ) is an adjective that is used in the title of a retired professor, bishop or other professional. ... A graph of a Normal bell curve showing statistics used in educational assessment and comparing various grading methods. ... This article does not cite its references or sources. ... Political economy was the original term for the study of production, the acts of buying and selling, and their relationships to laws, customs and government. ... “Yale” redirects here. ... The Washington Metro subway map Information graphics or infographics are visual representations of information, data or knowledge. ... plotting redirects here. ... Sample flowchart diagram A diagram is a simplified and structured visual representation of concepts, ideas, constructions, relations, statistical data, anatomy etc used in all aspects of human activities to visualize and clarify the topic. ... The American Statistical Association (ASA) is a scientific and educational society in the United States with the stated mission to promote excellence in the application of statistical science across the wealth of human endeavor. ... The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation is a nonprofit corporation founded in 1937 by philanthropist Solomon R. Guggenheim and artist Hilla Rebay. ...

Tufte currently resides in Cheshire, Connecticut. He periodically travels around the United States to offer one-day workshops on data presentation and information graphics. Cheshire is a town in New Haven County, Connecticut, United States. ... The Washington Metro subway map Information graphics or infographics are visual representations of information, data or knowledge. ...

Achievements

Tufte's writing is important in such fields as information design and visual literacy, which deal with the visual communication of information. He coined the term "chartjunk" to refer to useless, non-informative, or information-obscuring elements of quantitative information displays. Tufte uses the term data-ink ratio and argues strongly against the inclusion of any non-informative decoration in visual presentations of quantitative information and claims that ink should only be used to convey significant data and aid in its interpretation. In chapter 2 of The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Tufte states: Information design has been defined as the art and science of preparing information so that it can be used by human beings with efficiency and effectiveness (Jacobson 2000). ... Visual literacy is the set of skills involved in the interpretation and criticism of images. ... Chartjunk is unnecessary and often confusing visual elements in charts and graphs that go beyond the minimum visual set to understand the information. ...

Criticism of PowerPoint

Tufte has criticized the way Microsoft PowerPoint is typically used. In his essay The cognitive style of PowerPoint, Tufte criticizes many emergent properties of the software: Wikibooks has more about this subject: Powerpoint Microsoft Office PowerPoint is a ubiquitous presentation program developed for the Microsoft Windows and Mac OS computer operating systems. ... A termite cathedral mound produced by a termite colony: a classic example of emergence in nature. ...

• Its use to guide and reassure a presenter, rather than to enlighten the audience;
• Unhelpfully simplistic tables and charts, resulting from the low resolution of computer displays;
• The outliner causing ideas to be arranged in an unnecessarily deep hierarchy, itself subverted by the need to restate the hierarchy on each slide;
• Enforcement of the audience's linear progression through that hierarchy (whereas with handouts, readers could browse and relate items at their leisure);
• Poor typography and chart layout, from presenters who are poor designers and who use poorly designed templates and default settings;
• Simplistic thinking, from ideas being squashed into bulleted lists, and stories with beginning, middle, and end being turned into a collection of disparate, loosely disguised points. This may present a kind of image of objectivity and neutrality that people associate with science, technology, and "bullet points".

Tufte's criticism of PowerPoint has extended to its use by NASA engineers in the events leading to the Columbia disaster. Tufte's analysis of a representative NASA PowerPoint slide is included in a full page sidebar entitled "Engineering by Viewgraphs" [1] in Volume 1 of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board's report. The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster occurred on February 1, 2003, when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas during re-entry into the Earths atmosphere, shortly before concluding its 28th mission, STS-107. ... Memorial emblem for the three U.S. human space flight accidents. ...

Sparkline

Sparklines U.S. stock market activity (February 7, 2006)
Index	Day	Value	Change
Dow Jones		10765.45	−32.82 (−0.30%)
S&P 500		1256.92	−8.10 (−0.64%)
Nasdaq		2244.83	−13.97 (−0.62%)

Tufte also developed sparklines — a simple, condensed way to present trends and variation, associated with a measurement such as average temperature or stock market activity. These are often used as elements of a small multiple with several lines used together. Image File history File links Sparkline_dowjones. ... Image File history File links Sparkline_sp500. ... Image File history File links Sparkline_nasdaq. ... Sparklines are a format developed by Edward Tufte for small graphic charts which can be inserted within text on a page. ... Fig. ... A stock market is a market for the trading of company stock, and derivatives of same; both of these are securities listed on a stock exchange as well as those only traded privately. ... Small multiples (a term popularized by Edward Tufte in Envisioning Information) are a series of small similar pictures, making a point through repetition. ...

Bibliography

Tufte's Yale PhD thesis was The civil rights movement and its opposition (1968).

Early in his career, Tufte wrote several books about using statistics to analyze political issues:

• Dahl, Robert; Edward R. Tufte (1973). Size & Democracy. Stanford University Press. ISBN 0804708347. 
• Tufte, Edward R. (1974-08-05). Data Analysis for Politics and Policy. Prentice Hall College Div. ISBN 0131975250. 
  • Tufte notes on his website that a second edition of this book is likely.
  • Tufte now owns the copyright and has made a free pdf of DAPP available on his website.
• Tufte, Edward R. (1978). Political Control of the Economy. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691075948. 

The core of Tufte's work documents how to best display different forms of information with copious examples and commentary: Robert Alan Dahl (b. ...

• Tufte, Edward R. [1983] (2001). The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, 2nd Edition, Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press. ISBN 0961392142. 
• Tufte, Edward R. (1990). Envisioning Information. Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press. ISBN 0961392118. 
• Tufte, Edward R. (1997). Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative. Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press. ISBN 0961392126. 
  • Chapter 2 is also published as Tufte, Edward R. (1997). Visual & Statistical Thinking: Displays of Evidence for Decision Making. Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press. ISBN 0961392134.  It contains extensive analysis of Dr John Snow's intervention into the cholera epidemic in London in 1854 and into the Challenger disaster of 1986.
• Tufte, Edward R. (2003). "PowerPoint is evil". Wired 11 (9). ISSN 1059-1028. 
• Tufte, Edward R. [2003] (2006). The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint, 2nd Edition, Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press. ISBN 0961392169. 
• Tufte, Edward R. (2006). Beautiful Evidence. Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press. ISBN 0961392177. 

Dr. John Snow John Snow (1813 - 1858) was a British physician and a leader in the adoption of anaesthesia and medical hygiene, and is often considered one of the fathers of epidemiology for his work in tracing the source of a cholera outbreak in Soho, Westminster, England in 1854. ... The launch of the Space Shuttle Challenger on mission 51L/STS-33, the 25th of the STS (Space Transportation System) program, began at an estimated time of 16:38:00. ... ISSN, or International Standard Serial Number, is the unique eight-digit number applied to a periodical publication including electronic serials. ...

External links

• Edward Tufte's website with Ask E.T. forum Ask E.T. forum topic on publication of Beautiful Evidence
• EdwardTufte WikiWikiWeb
• The Data Artist
• Intelligent Designs Article in Stanford University's alumni magazine
• The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint Presented in the Form of a PowerPoint Presentation
• Representation and Misrepresentation: Tufte and the Morton Thiokol Engineers on the Challenger criticizes Tufte's analysis of NASA graphics in Visual Explanations
• Ivy League Rock and Roll - A day with Edward Tufte Review of a Tufte seminar, including discussion of his work]
• Business Refinery SimpleCharts - a Java library to Create Sparklines.