Edward Tufte Quotes

Only drug dealers and software companies call their customers 'users'

It is straightforward for me to be ethical, responsible, and kind-hearted because I have the resources to support that.

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.

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.

If the statistics are boring, you've got the wrong numbers.

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

Good design is a lot like clear thinking made visual.

Design cannot rescue failed content.

Clutter and confusion are failures of design, not attributes of information.

The world is complex, dynamic, multidimensiona l; the paper is static, flat. How are we to represent the rich visual world of experience and measurement on mere flatland?

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

Simple design, intense content.

The commonality between science and art is in trying to see profoundly - to develop strategies of seeing and showing.

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".

There is no such thing as information overload, just bad design. If something is cluttered and/or confusing, fix your design.

Great design is not democratic; it comes from great designers. If the standard is lousy, then develop another standard.

The idea is that the content is the interface, the information is the interface, not computer-administrative debris.

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.

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

Make all visual distinctions as subtle as possible, but still clear and effective.

Above all else show the data.

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

The world is much more interesting than any one discipline.

Good design is clear thinking made visible, bad design is stupidity made visible

An open mind but not an empty head.

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

The minimum we should hope for with any display technology is that it should do no harm.

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

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

If you like overheads, you'll love PowerPoint.

The point of the essay is to change things.

A curious consequence is that I have become a minor celebrity.

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

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

Public discussions are part of what it takes to make changes in the trillions of graphics published each year.

My father worked for governments all his life as an engineer and public works director.

I was writing a chapter of Beautiful Evidence on the subject of the sculptural pedestal, which led to my thinking about what's up on the pedestal - the great leader.

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

Clutter is not a property of information. Clutter is a failure of design.

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

The speculative part of my work is that these particular cognitive tasks - ways of thinking analytically - are tied to nature's laws.

The world is generally multivariate

I hope that I am generous and tolerant, but certainly on the intellectual side I think that there are discoverable truths, and some things that are closer approximations to the truth than others.

I think it is important for software to avoiding imposing a cognitive style on workers and their work.

It is not how much empty space there is, but rather how it is used. It is not how much information there is, but rather how effectively it is arranged.

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.

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

The idea of trying to create things that last-forever knowledge-has guided my work for a long time now.

The goal is to provide analytical tools that will last students a lifetime

If you’re told what to look for, you can’t see anything else.