In preparation for my dissertation work, I attended one of Edward Tufte's Presenting Data and Information workshops in Austin on Friday. His talk, while not exactly earth-shattering, was interesting and provocative. There were places I found myself vehemently disagreeing with the information design guru, particularly when he said, "you don't need to have to know your audience, you just have to respect them." Hmm. Yes, respect for your audience is good. But what about respecting those individuals with vision issues? One of my problems with many of Tufte's design suggestions, especially his recently-debuted sparklines, is that they specifically require a certain level of visual acuity to decode. While I can see these types of mini-graphs being useful for financial pages and the like, it's hard to believe they will become de riguer Web design patterns.
Tufte's workshop is pretty much the same whenever you attend it, at least if 37 Signals' review is any indication.
I actually had my books autographed (sigh, such a nerd!) and talked with him for a few seconds. Actually, it was more like he talked to me. Based on our conversation, I determined that Tufte is definitely not a fan of postmodernism, and has little regard for the turn academic inquiry has taken in the last twenty years. I'm not sure how I feel about all this.
