Assignment 7: Thinking about graphical excellence By: Sarah K. Brooks

Graphical Mediocrity… Graphical Excellence…  Over cluttered:  Unnecessary added part to the chart.  You can not understand what the chart is trying to tell you.  Unnecessary 3D charts that make it hard for the eye to pick up on the data.  The way the data is laid out makes it hard to understand or makes the data false.  Avoid chart “Ducks”  These are when a plot of your data becomes fuller of design elements than data.  Ink to Data ratio!  This should be as close to 1:1 as possible  Serve a clear purpose of one:  description  exploration  tabulation  decoration

Graphical Mediocrity I find this chart to be an example of graphical mediocrity. The chart has two vertical lines showing different dates however the first one says “history”, what time is “history” supposed to be years ago? 10 minutes ago? Bad labeling. Each type of energy source is a filled in line? I’m not sure what the reason for filling in unless it is to show that it is filled all the way to the bottom of the chart? This is a bad way to show Natural gas is the highest use. Overall I understand that the chart is trying to show a future projection of energy sources but the Data/Ink ratio much higher then 1:1. Article source: show-fracking-bad-health-embargoed-1700gmt-14th-oct

Graphical Excellence This chart is my example of graphical excellence. There are many things I like about this chart. First everything is simple. There is no large colored in areas or any distractions as a whole. The line graph showing temperature is simple with the two line color coded for high and lows. Nice simple easy-to-read key. It combined multiple pieces of information without overloading ink. You can easily tell that phoenix has no real correlation with amount of rain and temperature. There is a high peak of temperature and rain at the same time however. Article source: states/3172

Summary of Tufte's “The Cognitive Style of Powerpoint” In Tufte’s “The cognitive Style of PowerPoint”, Tufte makes many points. He had a lot to say about how much he dislikes PowerPoint. He talks about how accept for the very bad and the very good of presentation skills 80% of people have difficulties using PowerPoint. He also points about how kids today are getting their first experiences in presentations on PowerPoint and that is damaging to their education. They are being taught to present words rather then data on their topic. There was a large amount of dissecting of PowerPoints’ weaknesses with NASA and the Columbia accident. He goes into great detail about all of the distractions the Boeing PowerPoints had with large bullets, unnecessary dashes, parentheses. How they kept using acronyms without telling what the acronym is. They over used vigorous but vaguely quantitative words such as “significant”. Tufte’s whole thought is that you don’t need all of this pretty over worked, fancy looking presentation. You need a presentation that gets the information out correctly and efficiently.