Notes from Tufte

This morning I gave a 10 minute presentation on the Tufte workshop I attended in May. To prepare, I spent about an hour last night looking through my notes from the workshop, narrowing down Tufte’s wisdom into a handful of bite-sized nuggets that my co-workers (a science writer, programmer, multimedia guy & communications director) might find particularly useful. It went over well and so I thought I’d share them here.

1. When creating an info graphic, use arrows as verbs. Annotate the arrows. Don’t use boxes. Consider contrast and optical vibration when using black lines against a white background. (See Beautiful Evidence, page 78 and Envisioning Information, page 56 for examples.)
2. When creating org charts, annotate linkages between people. Not all relationships are the same, create texture (and make a more informative graphic) by describing how people are related. (See Beautiful Evidence, page 79 for examples.)
3. Do not be afraid of large tables of information. People know how to read complex tables (sports page, stocks), they do so everyday… and without borders or lines in between the figures. Also, order information contextually to provide more information to the consumer of the graphic (in other words, don’t alphabetize). Give your audience credit to scan, think and reason. They will live up to it. (See Beautiful Evidence, page 174 and Envisioning Information, pages 30-31 for examples.)
4. “Don’t get it original, get it right.” Find a good model and copy it. “Talent imitates, genius steals.” T.S. Elliot
5. When giving a presentation, always give handouts. Arrive early, especially if you are an important person. Since you are there early, walk around the room delivering your handout to the folks that come in early and talk to them. People reading ahead (slides, handouts, whatever) is a good thing because it allows for more conversation and understanding during the presentation (or it speeds it up). Practice your presentation, video tape yourself to improve. Never start a presentation with an apology. If you have data that you are basing graphics in your slides on, print it out and offer audience members a chance to see it (pass it around, put it at the front of the room). Always finish your presentation early. (See The Cognitive Style of Powerpoint: Pitching Out Corrupts Within for more information.)