

Tufte: USPTO dashboard "one of the worst interfaces ever designed" - zb
http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0003pi&topic_id=1

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bbq
Direct link to the USPTO dashboard:

<http://www.uspto.gov/dashboards/patents/main.dashxml>

Tufte doesn't appear to be exaggerating.

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hkmurakami
I just blurted out "What the f*ck. Oh my God" in front of my computer. I only
started learning about data visualization a few months ago, but even to my
nearly-untrained pair of eyes, the flaws of this monstrosity are readily
apparent.

To quote Tufte from his link, "Can someone, perhaps an Inspector General, find
out the cost and the contracting company that did this?"

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blahedo
And as bad as it is, that post is more than a year old, apparently without any
effects on the dashboard. Alas.

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ntkachov
Just wondering, Is it possible for a patent troll to sue the USPTO because of
their website?

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driverdan
I wouldn't be surprised if displaying data as a gauge on a website is
patented.

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FrancescoRizzi
Anyone submitted "A Method for making eyes bleed" for patenting yet?

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zlotty
Tufte is completely overhyped. The quality of his work is meh and his website
is a joke. If this is the high priest of design, god help us all.

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potatolicious
> _"If this is the high priest of design, god help us all."_

You're confusing Tufte with a graphics designer. He's known for data
visualization.

There's a _huge_ difference between those two professions. Tufte is one of the
old guard of information presentation - not pretty, not even good looking, but
unambiguous and copiously informative. His displays is what you might find in
an airplane cockpit, not a Web 2.0 website.

Data visualization and cognitive ergonomics are fields that existed long
before CS, and should not be conflated with "design" as software geeks
understand it.

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zlotty
Actually, no. Graphic design/UI design is not what I was talking about.

Tufte makes a lot of noise about communicating complex information visually.

But frankly and ironically, he does an abysmal job of this himself. Have you
ever looked at his books? They're a hodge podge of unrelated, poorly visually
articulated thoughts that fail to create a larger narrative.

I think the biggest problem is that he's considered the go-to guy on this,
when in reality his own work is substandard at best.

