SETlinc Design Notes about Edward Tufte
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Edward Tufte
http://www.edwardtufte.com/
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Edward Tufte has written seven books, including Visual Explanations, Envisioning Information, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, and Data Analysis for Politics and Policy. He writes, designs, and self-publishes his books on information design, which have received more than 40 awards for content and design. He is Professor Emeritus at Yale University, where he taught courses in statistical evidence, information design, and interface design. His current work includes digital video, sculpture, printmaking, and a new book called Beautiful Evidence.
General Notes:
- Good work is created by People who Care About, Know, and Take Responsibility For the CONTENT.
- Human Perception: in one glance, we can take in the approximate equivalent of 150 megabytes of information in 16 bit color.
- Design elements should be invisible in comparison to actual content. Structure and organization should be driven by the content.
- Annotate and use footnotes whenever possible, to increase the credibility of the content by associating the content with verifiable sources.
- Find excellent examples - Google News (http://news.google.com/), New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/), Wall Street Journal (http://www.wsj.com/), and use them as templates.
Site Design:
The site, like each page, must be almost solely content, minimizing design element visibility. Design must be limited to organizing and formatting the content, and presenting relevant content with the supporting detail in as concise a field or fields of view as possible.
Page Design:
Use of Design Standards - To maintain clarity of communication, content, as well as the context and meaning of the content, must be defended against designers, marketers and computer administrators. Design guidelines protect the content.
Menus - Visitors are interested in the information a website provides, and desire to gain access to that information efficiently. Presenting substantial amounts of content in every field of view (screen) allows the visitor's eye to scan the field of view and take significant amounts of data in rapidly.
Content should be provided up front to the greatest extent possible. Don't hide information behind menus if it could be presented with other menus or otherwise in a higher level field of view (for example, put a brief weather report on the main page of a site, instead of linking to a content page containing the same brief weather report).
Graphics - In general, be conservative with web graphics. Even users with high-speed connections appreciate a fast-loading page.
Graphics should be used only when they are integral to the content of the page. Any elements that are additional to the content should not be used.
Graphics can very effectively communicate huge amounts of data if well constructed, and so are a powerful tool to be utilized when appropriate.
*Beware of Graphic Embellishment*
Horizontal rules, graphic bullets, icons, and background graphics should be avoided except in rare cases, as needed to clarify the content.
Use animations, video, or sound only when they are the only way to accurately convey the content (for example, pronounciations on a dictionary website).
Simplicity and consistency - Tufte recommends a careful, systematic approach to page design. This can simplify navigation, reduce user errors, and keep content presentation clear and efficient.
Eliminating design elements not integral to the content puts the visitor's focus on the content.
Layout - Define and organize the content, and it will dictate the layout of the pages, as well as the organization of the site. Content and supporting should be detailed, with annotations, presented in a high resolution media where possible, and distinguishing layers of information within a field of view by the smallest effective difference.
Content must be supported by credible data, including the names and bios of the authors. If someone will put their name on something, that lends credibility to the information. Further, all relevant data should be included to provide a balanced and accurate perception of the reality represented by the data.
Clarity should be maintained, with well organized content designed so that it is visible in its entirety, and relationships within the content are clearly seen.
Design for Screens of Information - All content is presented within fields of view, by definition. On the computer screen, the medium of the web, the field of view is one screen. Content should be presented in the context of the field of view, and therefore web content should be presented in the context of the screen.
Frames - Frames-based pages confuse visitors' ability to print, bookmark, and navigate, and therefore should be avoided.
Use Subtle Colors - Subtle colors are useful in that they allow greater numbers of layers of information within the same field of view. The smallest effective difference between different layers of information should always be sought after, so taht the information can be presented as densely as possible (as there is no theoretical possibility for a human to be overloaded by the amount of information presented on a computer screen, only confused by disorganized information).
Text - Text is the most widely accesible web content there is. For physically disabled users, text can be magnified, read audibly by special software, or rendered by a Braille reader. Text loads quickly and can be viewed on nongraphical browsers. Text can be read and indexed by search engines and translated into other languages. Text should be used instead of graphics where the content is mainly textual in nature, and graphics are not essential for clear presentation of the data.
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SETlinc - http://www.setlinc.com/