Carla, summarizing our First thoughts on information overload, also mentions that Edward Tufte has published a new chapter of Beautiful Evidence. The relation between the two topics is that Tufte tries to find ways to reduce a lot of data (overload) to visualisations that tell a true story about this data.
One problem I have over and over again is: "How to visualise the data from my software?" And this is a very significant problem as the end-user does not see the software or the data but only the results. After reading Tufte's Envisioning Information (Graphics Press, 1990), I feel far more comfortable when faced with yet another visualisation problem.
I also talked to some colleagues who have read Tufte. They don't like his books. A possible explanation is the following scenario. Imagine you are a Ph.D. student and your supervisor says: "Read Tufte". You get the book, have your marker ready and you start reading. After reading more than half of the book you still have not used your marker. You get worried, suppose the supervisor asks specific questions about the book.
Does Tufte have a theory? Well, I think he has, but he does not write it down like a theory. He uses words and images. An alternative for Tufte are the books by Howard Wainer.
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