[Sigia-l] Edward Tufte

[Andrew H Otwell]

> I went to Edward Tufte's one day seminar yesterday ...
> and I was, I have to admit, a little
> disappointed on several levels. The first was his overt trashing of user
> testing (he sd that good designs mean you don't HAVE to user test). The
> second was his seeming complete unawareness that websites grow and die, and
> showing me screenshots from sites taken 2+ years ago is not going to really
> forward the cause.

Tufte's a smart guy, but he's not a web or software designer. He comes from
fields (academia, statistical information design) where there's zero
tradition of user testing. Many aspects of usability or user testing deal
with things that aren't clearly visual, and so really are outside of his
expertise.

I'm sure his view as an outsider in this regard is a lot like many clients
or designers we've all worked with who say "but this is a *good design*. Why
would we test it? Didn't I hire you for your expertise and good judgement?"
It's quite hard to say "yes" to both of those questions AND still convince
someone to buy into testing.