Notes from Edward Tufte's workshop

Who is Edward Tufte?

Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Statistics, and Computer Science at Yale University

Honorary degrees from Williams College, Connecticut College, Cooper Union, Saint Joseph College, Maryland Art Institute, Minneapolis College of Art, and University of the Arts.

Fellow at American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Guggenheim Foundation, American Statistical Association, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Society for Technical Communication

Consulting and courses on data analysis and display design: NASA, Apple, The New York Times, IBM, Bose, Fidelity Investments, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Google, President’s Commission on Federal Statistics Medtronic, New Jersey Transit,


Thoughts on the workshop

It is a very engaging workshop and Tufte is an entertaining presenter.

Great for a beginner. Pro's just buy his books and read through them over a week (great content and lots of it).

Data Visualization: Classics Edition

On the first page of his first data visualization book, Mr Edward Tufte states his fundamental beliefs about data visualization. One of his principles corresponds to encouraging the eye to compare the different pieces of data. I wasn't very sure what he meant by that until I came across some of the classic works of visualizations. One can easily recognize and appreciate the thoughtfulness and arduous efforts of these data artists.

John Snow's Cholera Map


By John Snow - Published by C.F. Cheffins, Lith, Southhampton Buildings, London, England, 1854 in Snow, John. On the Mode of Communication of Cholera, 2nd Ed, John Churchill, New Burlington Street, London, England, 1855. (This image was originally from en.wikipedia; description page is/was here. Image copied from http://matrix.msu.edu/~johnsnow/images/online_companion/chapter_images/fig12-5.jpg), Public Domain, Link

P-P plot vs Q-Q plot

P-P plot and Q-Q plot are called probability plots.

Probability plot helps us to compare two data sets in terms of distribution. Generally one set is theoretical and one set is empirical (not mandatory though).

The two types of probability plots are

• Q-Q plot (more common)
• P-P plot

Before getting in to details consider following,