Tuesday 3.18

Today we framed our discussion on inforgraphics by talking about Power Point and how much Edward Tufte hates it (please see the link to the reading "Why Power Point is Evil").
Tufte's main complaints against Power Point are that it:

• reduces, "disrupts, dominates and trivializes content" (instead of simplifying it)
• elevates format over content 
• removes context from the relevant information (rather than showing the content alongside other relevant information)
• "rather than supplementing a presentation, it has become a substitute for the presentation."
• sets up a speaker's dominance over the audience

Tufte closes by stating "Such misuse ignores the most important rule of speaking: respect your audience."

After discussing the article, we looked at a humorous infographic ("Everytime you make a Powerpoint, Edward Tufte kills a kitten") and discussed the ways that these two texts had similar stances (they were both humorous and reflect Tufte's dislike for Power Points), but they presented very different types of information:

the article presented and explained ideas while the infographic described (in very little detail) a cause-and-effect relationship.

The point of this conversation--using the terminology of the rhetorical situation--was to think about what kind of format/medium is appropriate to various purposes.

We then introduced Project Infographic (see the Google Docs link) and began working on the first stages of this project, exploring various ways to create softwares to create infographics.

Our discussion brought up an interesting question about the differences between an infographic and a simple picture and we determined that a picture is usually static, capturing/illustrating a single moment. While an infographic describes the relationship between two (or more) sets of information. We used the images below as examples.

This is a picture of Cinderella leaving the ball. The information we get here is that 1) she is leaving her shoe and 2) she is reluctant to leave, but must.

The information this image does not give us is 1) why she is leaving or 2) what caused this action 3) what happened as a result of this action.

http://blingee.com/blingee/view/88094383-Cinderella-Running-Away

This infographic explains how the elements of the Cinderella story work together and how the combination of two (or more) elements have a particular result.

(Admittedly, a lot of the information here is reduced or oversimplified and would require a textual explanation.)

http://www.disneyeveryday.com/disney-math-cinderella-infographic/

For Thursday, continue thinking about a suitable topic. We will continue our work on Step 1.