Visual Explanations caps the brilliant trilogy of Edward R. Tufte's series on information.

Visual Explanations
Envisioning Information
The Visual Display of Quantitative Information

Tufte's earlier books focus on the transformation of data into information and Visual Explanations shows us how we can best draw the clear conclusions which effect our actions and those of our society. His writings and examples swing from the wit of "Explaining Magic" to the charting of failed rockets leading to the deaths upon the Challenger launch.

Tufte's look at engaging in disinformation design is a wonderful chapter on "Explaining Magic". Examples are full of wit and some of the most complex serial drawings I have seen.

His second chapter; "Visual and Statistical Thinking:Displays of Evidence for Making Decisions", shows us the weight and responsibility we carry to communicate in clear ways.

In the two case studies, John Snow's study on the severe Cholera epidemic in London in 1854 and the space shuttle Challenger explosion 132 years later, Tufte present the compelling reason why every Architect, Engineer and Builder should understand the tools of data analysis.

John Snow's work shows the best case of how we can come to understandings based upon the clear ordering of data. Snow's charting illustrated a correlation of deaths and a infected water pump. Political action was taken and water as a carrier of cholera was understood for the first time.

John Snow's chart deaths near the well head.

A clear sequence of development

Data to Information
Information to Evidence
Evidence to Action

The story of the space shuttle Challenger is every engineer's nightmare, the cold sweat of the moment when you ask have "I seen everything" and "do I understand it". In the flood of formless data which sweeps over us, Tufte gives us the tools to make information, to form conclusions and to share these conclusions with others.

Understanding the Challenger disaster

Is there hind sight at play in the review of the Morton Thiokol team?--You bet.

Did they know there was a problem with the "o" rings at low temp.?-- There was a strong suspicion of this based on the data among the engineering team.

Did the engineering team present evidence of the "o" ring temp. and rocket damage in a clear way? -- No. and the launch went forward.

I have been on large project teams where you see a small part of the picture and the press of dead lines is felt every minute. To reach up and pull the brake lever and say "STOP" is very difficult when you do not have that hard evidence in hand. The reprinted letter with the O.K. to launch just makes my heart break. However, it makes the point that the stakes of not understanding that stream of data can be catastrophic.

Yes, the Challenger disaster and cholera epidemic are extreme cases that deal with life and death conditions but the tools Tufte illustrates would go a long way to help us in our day to day practice.

Data - Information - Evidence - Action

A week ago the LA Times ran an article about a well known Architect Tom Mayne and a fire station in Santa Monica which he was designing with another "more traditional" firm. Well the firemen hated the design. They, and many in the community wanted a traditional style, i.e.... Spanish Colonial. While the Mayne design was not really shown in the article (it may or may not have been good) I was shocked that a design had developed so far with out the support of the client. A lack of shared understanding between the Architect and the clients/user was the focus of the press.

There was no common understanding of the critical criteria by which a fire station should be designed. Mayne did not make it clear that while there may be a wide range of designs that are possible, a contemporary structure "cloaked to look Spanish" would be akin to draping a mural of romantic charging horses around the fire truck.

New laws in the Los Angeles area make the fire stations key "survivable buildings" as staging areas for the earthquake plan. The idea of the firemen fighting for red tile roofs and Spanish styling shows that the criteria of design was not understood. The Architect's failure here is to communicate issues so that a review is of ideas, and not of style. The fact that Spanish Architecture was even under discussion at this point in the design process shows how key information which would move his constituents away from their first conceptions was lacking.

From Snow's success in the creation of evidence from data to the fun music chart which illustrate concepts of parallelism Tufte offers us the tools needed to test and implement our designs.

Charting Giacometti's portfolio