What’s interesting is that over 20 years before sparklines came on the scene, Tufte developed a different type of data visualization that didn’t fare nearly as well. To date, in fact, I’ve only been able to find three examples of it, and even they aren’t completely in line with his vision.

Edward Tufte's slopegraphs.
posted by Foci for Analysis on Jul 11, 2011 - 16 comments

“If you display information the right way, anybody can be an analyst,” Tufte once told me. “Anybody can be an investigator.” - The Washington Monthly interviews informaticist Edward Tufte [via]
posted by Blazecock Pileon on May 17, 2011 - 45 comments

Data Analysis for Politics and Policy was written by Edward Tufte in 1974. It's an introduction to basic data analysis techniques with examples taken from the social sciences. The book is written in a friendly, conversational tone and is only 179 pages long. The chapter explaining simple linear regression is the heart of the book.
posted by Jasper Friendly Bear on Mar 13, 2010 - 13 comments

Oh hai here's a flow chart showing the creative/organizational process of a (Walt) Disney film. Stay away from the morgue.
posted by billysumday on Dec 10, 2009 - 23 comments

Speaking of Edward Tufte (see below), sparklines are a type of information graphics characterized by their small size and data density named by Tufte. Sparklines were used by sites reporting the 2008 election and were first introduced on MeFi in 2005. There are now several ways to put sparklines on your own web site including: a simple jQuery plugin, a downloadable PHP library, a dynamic generator using a Python CGI program, and even a library for Ruby on Rails.
posted by netbros on Feb 27, 2009 - 8 comments

You used to be able to ask Edward Tufte questions on his website. He disabled the new questions part a few years ago so only a topic or two a month comes out now. But the old topics form years long conversations running to tens of thousands of words, generally polite and insightful. Here are some excellent threads: recommendations for graphing software, Book design: advice and examples, Medical information exchange: The patient, doctor, computer triangle, Evidence and assumptions in tree diagrams, Airport maps, Lists, Advice for effective analytical reasoning, a celebration of Megan Jaegerman's news graphics, Design of causal diagrams, the merits of ISO paper sizes.
posted by shothotbot on Feb 27, 2009 - 10 comments

Looking for the graphic "The Genealogy of Pop/Rock Music" I remembered from Tufte, I found HistoryShots. [previous mention]
posted by cgc373 on Jul 26, 2008 - 16 comments

Learning to Love PowerPoint Wired and the New York Times feature David Byrne's DVD/book Envisioning Emotional Epistemological Information, which contains art he created with PowerPoint. The title's a reference to Edward Tufte, who has his own opinion of PowerPoint (which was remixed by Aaron Swartz).
posted by kirkaracha on Aug 20, 2003 - 44 comments