(part two) Power Point Creating Morons, Mr. Tufte & Visual Analytical Design

 

 

Best Experienced With:     Rage Against The Machine    Mic Check

(Please right click on the link below to cue up the suggested background music to this evening’s treatise on Power Point silliness in a new browser window.  This is part two of two.   You can find part one of two by clicking on the thing up there that takes you back to yesterday.  Because they are sequential.   That’s how we roll in The Attic)

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2flANhkdZs&feature=fvst

 

 

All quotations below are Mr. Edward Tufte’s……the Leonardo da Vinci of Data.  

 

“At the heart of quantitative reasoning is a single question: Compared to what?   Small multiple designs, multivariate and data bountiful, answer directly by visually enforcing comparisons of changes, of the differences among objects, of the scope of alternatives.  For a wide range of problems in data presentation, small multiples are the best design solution.” 

 

 

 

 

“I do believe that there are some universal cognitive tasks that are deep and profound – indeed, so deep and profound that it is worthwhile to understand them in order to design our displays in accord with those tasks.” 

 

 

 

 

“There are many true statements about complex topics that are too long to fit on a PowerPoint slide.”

 

“It’s not that PowerPoint brought the Columbia down, but the method of presentation broke up the argument into tiny fragments, and it’s intensely hierarchical-no sentences, just little phrases.”   (Mr. Tufte was brought in after the Columbia crash to assist NASA in a root cause analysis….one of the roots was a poorly designed Power Point slide) 

 

 

“At its heart, my work is about how to think clearly and deeply, using evidence, and all that has to pass through some presentation state.” 

 

 

 

“What gets left out is the narrative between the bullets, which would tell us who’s going to do what and how we’re going to achieve the generic goals on the list.”

 

 

“We’ve drifted into this presentation mode without realizing the cost to the content and the audience in the process.”

 

 

 

 

 

The Mind of Mully

Mic check…..

Ha, ha ,ha

I be the

Anti Myth Rhythm Rock Shocker

 

 

 

Welcome down with the warrior sound………………………….

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let’s say someone has a gun to your kitten’s head and they say “choose one article that goes deep on faceted analytical displays, or the kitten dies”…pick this one and your kitten remains unscathed.  A little ditty by Stephen Few kicking off with a spiffy little tale from our childhood.  

http://www.b-eye-network.com/files/TS-three-blind-men.pdf