The Visual Display of Quantitative Information

A new write-up examines Edward Tufte's well-known data-ink ratio, the principle from 'The Visual Display of Quantitative Information' urging designers to maximise the ink devoted to data and strip away chart decoration. The piece reframes the idea as 'Tufte's Razor' and walks through what the ratio actually measures and how to apply it in practice when designing charts and visualisations.

Edward Tufte's 'lie factor' concept is back in circulation among French-speaking readers. The idea, drawn from his classic book 'The Visual Display of Quantitative Information', holds that any graphic showing an evolution must keep physical magnitudes proportional to the numbers represented, otherwise the chart lies. Readers are quoting his rule that representation of numbers by measured quantities should be directly proportional, a principle often violated in media and business graphics.