My boss let me barrow The Visual Display of Quantitive Information by Edward R. Tufte. I was so amazed by the book I thought I would do a little more research on the author. Edward R. Tufte is a political scientist turned statistician and information design expert. I’ve only been through the first chapter of the book so far but am amazed at Tufte’s ability to break down information into understandable visual structures allowing viewers to more easily read and compare statistics and data. He also give a lot of information about the history of charts. Tufte emphasizes accurate data, clear purpose and graphic design. When it all boils down to it, it is about comparison. Can the viewer easily compare data within a chart and is the chart compelling enough that they would even want to? I’m excited to read more. Something I found interesting when looking at Tufte’s Wikipedia is his criticism of PowerPoint and even NASA’s use of it claiming that charts on a piece of paper would let readers look more closely at information during a presentation. I’ve never been a big fan of PP myself.