The SECOND of Edward R. Tufte’s books on information display and visualization (1990). The series provides many graphical illustrations of how information should and should not be represented. Because I cannot reproduce those here, I must encourage everyone to find an actual copy of these texts and read (and look) through the books to see what he so vividly demonstrates. Following is a condensed version of my notes.

Envsioning Information

• Rearrange your Information – make it flat.
• Compress Dimensionality
• Don’t Duplicate (Every mark counts)
• No Chartjunk (Unnecessary and worse, distracting information)
• Arrange to highlight differences (Vietnam Wall is not alphabetical, as it would be boringly repetitive)
• 1+1=3 effect (Sight induces negative areas that can be used as information)
• Color can be used to

1. Label – color as a noun
2. Measure – color as a quantity
3. Imitate Reality – color as representation
4. Decorate – color as beauty

Edward Tufte’s Series of Visual Representations of Information

1. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
2. Envisioning Information
3. Visual Explanations