"PowerPoint is evil" author to monitor stimulus spending

[n2doc]

By Matthew Lasar | Last updated about an hour ago

Government and industry bureaucrats addicted to spewing out mind-numbing PowerPoint presentations, be very afraid; Edward Tufte is coming to Washington, DC. The Obama administration has appointed Tufte to serve on the Recovery Independent Advisory Panel, which will suggest ways that the $787 billion stimulus program's watchdog accountability board can do its job.

"I'm doing this because I like accountability and transparency, and I believe in public service," Tufte explained on his website on Sunday. "And it is the complete opposite of everything else I do."

We're not so sure about that. Edward Tufte is a leading critic of and writer about graphic presentations. He's also a champion of clarity in writing and public speaking. Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Statistics, and Computer Science at Yale University, much of his life has been dedicated to thinking out loud about what works and doesn't work when it comes to statistical charts, maps, and tables. His most famous book is his 1982 opus The Visual Display of Graphic Information, which coined the term "chartjunk."

"Like weeds," Tufte explained, "many varieties of chartjunk flourish." He identified three: "unintentional optical art"—bar and circle charts full of distracting moiré patterns; "the dreaded grid"—thick matrices of vertical/horizontal lines that make it harder to follow data; and "The Duck"—those goofy three dimensional graphic objects that you often see superimposed over maps and tables. They reminded him of various roadside stores built in the literal form of ducks.

more:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/03/powerpoint-foe-tapped-by-white-house.ars

[HopeHoops]

1. Is he going to give his reports with PowerPoint slides?

:shrug:

[aikoaiko]

2. As someone who started off with slides in projectors and then transparencies....

...power point is still freakin awesome.

The only thing better is creating an HTML doc so that your not stuck with the linear order of PP slides.