Good design is clear thinking made visible, bad design is stupidity made visible
Edward TufteRead
PowerPoint is like being trapped in the style of early Egyptian flatland cartoons rather than using the more effective tools of Renaissance visual representation.
Interpretation
This quote criticizes PowerPoint for being an ineffective presentation tool compared to more sophisticated methods of visual communication.
Edward Tufte emphasizes that PowerPoint, with its simplistic and flat design, constrains the way information is represented, making it less effective than more advanced visual graphics found in Renaissance art. He argues that such limitations impoverish the presentation of complex ideas and data, suggesting that we should embrace better tools for clearer understanding and storytelling.
In practice
Using this quote in a seminar on effective communication tools to illustrate the pitfalls of simplistic presentations.
Good design is clear thinking made visible, bad design is stupidity made visible
I have stared long enough at the glowing flat rectangles of computer screens. Let us give more time for doing things in the real world...plant a plant, walk the dogs, read a real book, go to the opera.
There is no such thing as information overload, just bad design. If something is cluttered and/or confusing, fix your design.
The minimum we should hope for with any display technology is that it should do no harm.
If you’re told what to look for, you can’t see anything else.
Design cannot rescue failed content.
As a historically voracious reader - pre-baby, I averaged a book every week or two, and when I was a kid, I'd routinely read a book a day - I never understood how some people could not read. When I heard people say they didn't have time to read, in my head, I simultaneously pitied and ridiculed them: there was always time to read.
You should make it hard on yourself to write so you’re easier to read.
If all females were not only well educated themselves but were prepared to communicate in an easy manner their stores of knowledge to others; if they not only knew how to regulate their own minds, tempers, and habits but how to effect improvements in those around them, the face of society would be speedily changed.
I'm read in the Caribbean with justice, with fairness. What I expect it to do is to encourage articulacy in the young.
Human intelligence is richer and more dynamic than we have been led to believe by formal academic education.
By the time I got to school, I had already read a couple hundred books. I knew in the first grade that they were lying to me because I had already been exposed to other points of view. School is basically about one point of view -- the one the teacher has or the textbooks have. They don't like the idea of having different points of view, so it was a battle. Of course I would pipe up with my five-year-old voice.
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