Who Knows Tufte?
Hi all,
Twice a year, I get to teach a data visualization short course at the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University. The class doesn’t feel that short even though it takes only two weeks to complete. It’s called an “Intensive Learning Environment” or ILE course that packs the standard 30+ hours of instruction into 6 weeknights and two full-day Saturdays. It’s a pretty exhausting couple of weeks (paired with the rest of my work) but I like getting into the classroom and getting to work with students for more than a single four- or eight-hour workshop.
In the first class, I asked students a simple question, just off the cuff: How many of them had heard of Edward Tufte.
Turns out, not a single student had heard of Tufte, which was pretty shocking to me. Tufte has been such a huge influence in the lives of so many data visualization practitioners I know, I had anticipated that at least half of the class—which is roughly what it was in the past—would have heard of him.
I posted the above Tweet morning after class and received a variety of reactions. Many people in my Twitter network were as shocked as I was.
And some had reached similar findings in their teaching.
Some were relieved. Tufte is overly and completely dogmatic, so to enable students to think critically about data visualization and design—something I hope I instill in my students rather than teaching unfounded “rules”—might help provide a broader foundation.
In retrospect—and as several people pointed out—even though Tufte is famous in my world, it’s not necessarily he’s famous in everyone’s world, even if it is in an area of study like data visualization. Later in the class, I’ll spend a bit of time talking about some of the early creators in the field (e.g., Playfair, Snow, Nightingale), followed by early practitioners in the modern era (e.g., Tufte, Few, Robbins), and then need to choose from the amazing folks working today.
If you find me in person one day, and are able to buy me a whiskey, I’ll even tell you about my not-so-great interaction with Tufte. But that’s definitely an in-person conversation.
Take care and thanks,
Jon
PolicyViz Podcast with Kirk Munroe
Kirk Munroe is a business analytics and performance management expert. He has held leadership roles in product management, marketing, sales enablement, and customer success in analytics software companies including, Cognos, IBM, Kinaxis, Tableau, and Salesforce. Kirk has a passion for coaching and mentoring people to make better decisions through storytelling with data. He is currently one of the two owners and principal consultants at Paint with Data, a visual analytics consulting firm. Kirk lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
Things I’m Reading and Watching
Books
Joyful Infographics by Nigel Holmes
Make YourData Speak by Alex Kolokov
Articles
Observing Race and Ethnicity through a New Lens An Exploratory Analysis of Different Approaches to Measuring “Street Race” by Gonzalez et al.
Who DoWe Mean WhenWe Talk About Visualization Novices? by Burns et al.
New Thinking on, and with, Data Visualization by Goodman, Borkin, and Robitaille
Blog Posts
Are Dashboards More Trustworthy? from PolicyViz
Latin@s/Hispanics are comprised of many races! Stop Anti-Blackness! by Nancy López
The Potential of Machine Learning for Compiling Standardized Zoning Data by Judah Axelrod
Data Visualizations
COVID-19 Vaccine Tracker (I know, I know, but I hadn’t seen this one)
What key players at Fox News said about the network and its viewers, Washington Post [decision trees]
What Happens If North Carolina Bans Abortion? Or Ohio? Or Florida?, FiveThirtyEight [bivariate choropleth map]
What Portion of Illinois Residents Eligible for Safety Net Benefits Receive Those Benefits? Urban Institute [choropleth map with a bar-chart-as-legend]
TV, Movies, and Miscellaneous
Last of Us, HBO Max
History of the World Part I
History of the World Part II (couldn’t get through the second episode 😒)
Metallica: Some Kind of Monster (again)
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Do No Harm Guide Call for Papers
There are two call for papers currently open for submissions to the next set of Do No Harm Guides from the Urban Institute. One report will focus on the US experience of creating more inclusive data products and the other will focus on the international experience. If you’re interested in submitting to either, please check out the links below. The submission deadline is April 1, 2023.