Experimental two-day course on July 12-13 in Palo Alto, California

I've decided to teach an experimental two-day course this summer in Palo Alto, California (about 45 minutes south of San Francisco) on Thursday-Friday, July 12-13. The course will consist of a chapter-by-chapter close reading and commentary on all four books: On day 1, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information and Envisioning Information. On day 2, Visual Explanations and Beautiful Evidence, and possibly some material from volume 5 in progress.

Over the years, in the one-day course, I've concentrated on certain practical topics (showing financial data, interface design, flow charts, PowerPoint, and so on) and on the most recent one or two books.

In contrast, this try at a two-day course will accept the organization of the books as written, which is on strategies of display (for example, escaping flatland, small multiples, layering and separation, integration of evidence, evidence corruption) and not on particular technologies of display (interface, slideware, animations) or particular topics (financial data, medical data). The two-day course is the theory of analytical design with examples; the one-day course, examples with some theory. Both courses stress a close reading of visual evidence.

In the two-day course, I can show more videos and rare books associated with the material in the four books. I can talk more informally about the books and describe what I was trying to do in a particular chapter or example. Since the two-day course will surely be smaller than the one-day course, there will be some opportunities for questions during the class and, like the one- day course, during office hours before the course and during lunch. One other relevant property of the two-day course is that students have to set aside two full days devoted entirely to the four books without interruption. There is probably about 20% direct overlap with the one-day course.

Students will be shipped the books in advance in order to do some reading assignments before the course. All four books must be in hand both days. The course is not divisible; students should take the course for two days; one fee covers both days.

-- Edward Tufte, March 27, 2007