[Sigia-l] Smackdown: Edward Tufte vs. Don Norman

[Mike Brown]

Karl Fast wrote:
>>>So bullets are *harder* to write than sentences and paragraphs?
>>
>>Infinitely. [1]
> 
> 
> So, writing my dissertation should be easy, relatively speaking.
> 
> Writing the introduction to the dissertation should be much harder.
> 
> Writing the abstract for the dissertation should be painful.
> 
> Creating bullet points for a presentation of the dissertation should
> be downright, pull-my-fingernails-out, excruciating. And these
> bullets should be taken as the best evidence that I have clearly
> thought the problem through.

Harder does not equal more painful. In this case it's much more likely 
to mean "needs greater skill/experience to do well".

> 
> Sorry, but I have never found this to be true (if it is, perhaps I
> should submit the bullet points instad of the dissertation itself;
> good bullets should be ample evidence).

No! Context is absolutely the key here. Just as you would not present 
bullet points for your dissertation, so you wouldn't present a thesis 
for Ziya's "elavator lift" example.

> 
> But the amount of work isn't the issue here--it is what gets
> communicated and how well. I have never found that people can gain
> more from reading my bullet points than they can from reading, say,
> the abstract. And I don't believe this has anything to do with the
> quality of my bullets.

I know the discussion has focused on bullet points (and you have 
provided other examples!), but step back a little. I think the key point 
is that providing an appropriate distillation is likely to be harder 
than writing at length. And what "appropriate distillation" means *will* 
vary with context. In your original example, it seems that that meant 
bullet points because, by god, that's what the CEO asked for. I think 
Ziya's point, and I agree, is that writing really good bullet points 
that distill your original paper down even further than your summary is 
going to be hard work. And yes, it will show you have thought through 
the issues, because you couldn't write good bullet points without doing so.

Key points:
- appropriate distillation varies with context
- bullet points are appropriate if the CEO says so
- the hard part is making them good
- making them good is likely to take time

Mike
(who is enjoying this discussion!)