

Edward Tufte video presentation on improving iPhone UI - Alex3917
http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/iphone-video.adp

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nickb
Yikes... I completely disagree with 'the man' on the stocks and on the weather
widget. All of the "improvements" he suggested for weather are horrendous.
Adding all that noise does nothing to improve my cognition of what the temp is
currently outside and what will it be later in the day.

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Alex3917
The point of IT is to combine information with technology to answer questions.
When designing something like this you need to start by asking yourself what
questions your users are trying to answer. The problem with Tufte's sketches
is that they answer different questions. The official Apple version of the
stock widget is designed to answer the question, "How much money is my
portfolio currently worth?" Whereas Tufte's version is designed to answer the
question, "Is now a good time to buy a given stock?" (And I would argue that
he answers this question poorly and unaesthetically.)

The real problem though is that since his widgets are designed to answer a
different set of questions, there isn't really any basis to compare the two
sets of designs.

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nickb
> _"How much money is my portfolio currently worth?" Whereas Tufte's version
> is designed to answer the question, "Is now a good time to buy a given
> stock?"_

I disagree. As someone who has some experience trading stock, there's no way
that anyone would seriously make a trade just based on looking at sparklines.
Even technical analysts need more information to make a decision. So in that
regard, sparklines are a failure.

> _The real problem though is that since his widgets are designed to answer a
> different set of questions, there isn't really any basis to compare the two
> sets of designs._

What about weather? What question is Tufte's version answering?!

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Alex3917
"As someone who has some experience trading stock, there's no way that anyone
would seriously make a trade just based on looking at sparklines."

That was kind of my thinking, that sparklines are more information than you
need to know how much your portfolio is worth, but not enough to answer the
question of whether to buy stock. (Which is what I was trying to say when I
said that it answers the question poorly and unaesthetically.)

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tlrobinson
That was... boring. Executive summary:

\- stocks and weather should use higher resolution imagery to convey more data
\- MobileSafari's bottom button bar should be transparent as to not take up
extra screen real estate \- he really like the phrase "computer administrative
debris"

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dcurtis
I've never seriously investigated the work of Edward Tufte before, but this
video really makes it look like he doesn't "get it" at all. He doesn't
understand that Apple's reasoning for enhancing the resolution on the iPhone
was to make the interface look amazing, not to stuff data into each pixel.

I can see how lots of people would agree with him-- seeing thousands of data
points on one screen makes sense. But it sacrifices usability and makes the
experience less fun and more difficult-- look at his weather "fix;" not only
is it very ugly, but it's also difficult to find exactly what the temperature
is because of the poor contrast and small, "image-sized" resolution. Apple's
design is "cartoony" because it's supposed to look beautiful, be extremely
easy to see, and show minimal data.

It reminds me of a quotation: "A designer knows he has achieved perfection not
when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take
away." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

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tel
I certainly agree with the point that the cartoon aesthetic needs to be
dropped in lieu of higher resolution data. Sparklines are an obvious (and very
Tufte) solution.

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vdm
URL to the actual video file:
[http://edwardtufte.com.s3.amazonaws.com/iPhone_Resolution-
de...](http://edwardtufte.com.s3.amazonaws.com/iPhone_Resolution-desktop.m4v)

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stillmotion
What a load of crap. He had no feel for design. "Fix the design"? This guy has
no skill.

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eusman
anyone with a youtube link?

