Sparklines are an attempt by Tufte to present data as intensely as possible.
I haven't used them so far, but in his one-day lecture and in his
forthcoming book, Beautiful Evidence, he typically uses baseball scores or stock
market quotations to demonstrate what he means.
It's an extension of the ideas he describes in Chapter 8 of "The Visual
Display of Quantitative Information": "With the help of considerable redundancy
and context, our eyes make fine distinctions...all the time." (p. 161)
By providing a uniform approach to designing this high-density presentation,
Tufte's Sparklines allow you to see minute differences more readily, perhaps.
Here's a full discussion of a revised draft of his chapter on Sparklines:
_http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0001OR&topic_id=1_
(
http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0001OR&topic_id=1)
If this link won't get you there, you can go to _www.edwardtufte.com_
(
http://www.edwardtufte.com) , connect to "Ask E.T." and do a search on Sparklines.
I'm hoping to incorporate some of Tufte's thinking, including Sparklines,
into my work with designing reporting systems for portfolio companies. I think
there are a couple of interesting ways of using the data to show progress
towards milestones that can be shared with investors and all stakeholders.
- Claiborne -
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