Best Tufte Quotes & Sayings

The most common user action on a Web site is to flee. — Edward Tufte

What is to be sought in designs for the display of information is the clear portrayal of complexity. Not the complication of the simple; rather the task of the designer is to give visual access to the subtle and the difficult - that is, revelation of the complex. — Edward Tufte

A practical part of my teaching is to provide demonstrative, hands-on experiences. — Edward Tufte

That is to say, nature's laws are causal; they reveal themselves by comparison and difference, and they operate at every multivariate space/time point. — Edward Tufte

Design isn't crafting a beautiful, textured button with breathtaking animation. It's figuring out if there's a way to get rid of the button altogether. — Edward Tufte

Here's the general theory: To clarify, add detail. Imagine that. To clarify, add detail. And clutter and overload are not an attribute of information, they are failures of design. If the information is in chaos, don't start throwing out information, instead fix the design. — Edward Tufte

PowerPoint presentations too often resemble a school play - very loud, very slow, and very simple. — Edward Tufte

We've drifted into this presentation mode without realizing the cost to the content and the audience in the process. — Edward Tufte

If the statistics are boring, then you've got the wrong numbers. — Edward R. Tufte

The goal is to provide analytical tools that will last students a lifetime. — Edward Tufte

Maybe I'll just go ahead and buy her the Tufte book. I'll bring it wrapped in brown paper. Wait- is that weird? It's an expensive book. Maybe there's a low-key paperback edition. I could buy it on Amazon. That's stupid, I work at a bookstore. (Could Amazon ship it fast enough?) — Robin Sloan

Information design has been around since the 1970s. Pioneers like Yale University design guru Edward Tufte and design agency Pentagram have long known and used its power. But now with the rise of the Internet, it's having something of a second birth. — David McCandless

Design cannot rescue failed content. — Edward R. Tufte

Beautiful Evidence is about the theory and practice of analytical design. — Edward Tufte

A metaphor for good information design is a map. Hold any diagram against a map and see how it compares. — Edward Tufte

In general, I think audiences are a lot smarter than people think. So, it's not "know your audience", it's "respect your audience, and really know your content". — Edward Tufte

If your words aren't truthful, the finest optically letter-spaced typography won't help, — Edward Tufte

What this means is that we shouldn't abbreviate the truth but rather get a new method of presentation. — Edward Tufte

To clarify, *add* data. — Edward R. Tufte

If your words or images are not on point, making them dance in color won't make them relevant. — Edward Tufte

The point of the essay is to change things. — Edward Tufte

There are many true statements about complex topics that are too long to fit on a PowerPoint slide. — Edward Tufte

I am certainly not an intellectual relativist, nor a moral relativist. — Edward Tufte

Graphical excellence is that which gives to the viewer the greatest number of ideas in the shortest time with the least ink in the smallest space. — Edward R. Tufte

Small, noncomparative, highly labeled data sets usually belong in tables. — Edward R. Tufte

The best graphics are about the useful and important, about life and death, about the universe. Beautiful graphics do not traffic with the trivial. — Edward Tufte

What about confusing clutter? Information overload? Doesn't data have to be "boiled down" and "simplified"? These common questions miss the point, for the quantity of detail is an issue completely separate from the difficulty of reading. Clutter and confusion are failures of design, not attributes of information. — Edward R. Tufte

The leading edge in evidence presentation is in science; the leading edge in beauty is in high art. — Edward Tufte

Above all else show the data. — Edward R. Tufte

There are only two industries that refer to their customers as 'users'. — Edward Tufte

Confusion and clutter are failures of design, not attributes of information. And so the point is to find design strategies that reveal detail and complexity - rather than to fault the data for an excess of complication. Or, worse, to fault viewers for a lack of understanding. — Edward Tufte

The essential test of design is how well it assists the understanding of the content, not how stylish it is. — Edward Tufte