Edward Tufte's impression of Windows Phone 7

Re:Edward Tufte's impression of Windows Phone 7 by keithwarren on Wednesday October 20, 2010 @06:32PM (#1813401)

His site definitely lacks style but I would argue the design is from that era as well. To be fair, I doubt he designed the look and feel of his site - and the truth is most great designers tend to have crappy sites because they are busy with real work and dont need to market themselves that heavily. I would guess he is probably in that boat, he doesnt really care about his web site because he has much more important things to do.

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Re:Edward Tufte's impression of Windows Phone 7 by slantyyz on Wednesday October 20, 2010 @11:25PM (#1814163)

You have to remember that Tufte's area of specialty is in the area of visualizing quantitative information. He's not a designer (although he is a sculptor, apparently) or GUI guru even if he has opinions on them.

Clearly a "dated" design isn't enough to stop you from visiting a site. Hacker News definitely has a dated feel too.

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Re:Edward Tufte's impression of Windows Phone 7 by Kliment on Thursday October 21, 2010 @04:03AM (#1814667)

Does it? I think it's the wave of the future. Or at least I hope it is. It's as close to pure content and zero chrome as I've seen anywhere. Tufte's site may look old, but it's fairly information-dense, and the comment system is the best I've seen anywhere.

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Re:Edward Tufte's impression of Windows Phone 7 by slantyyz on Thursday October 21, 2010 @08:58AM (#1815183)

My comment was intended less as a critique of Tufte or HN than to point out that the parent post's criticism on Tufte's site is a little off base.

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Re:Edward Tufte's impression of Windows Phone 7 by oloolo on Thursday October 21, 2010 @10:11AM (#1815410)

Tufte's site is s piece of crap, completely ridiculous. Criticizing websites is easy, making websites is hard. You're not an expert in user interface design if you haven't done user interface design.

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Re:Edward Tufte's impression of Windows Phone 7 by slantyyz on Thursday October 21, 2010 @10:16AM (#1815438)

Your first sentence sort of illustrates your second sentence's point, no?

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Re:Edward Tufte's impression of Windows Phone 7 by oloolo on Thursday October 21, 2010 @10:21AM (#1815461)

Well, in contrast to Tufte, I actually have built a couple of Interfaces...

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Re:Edward Tufte's impression of Windows Phone 7 by slantyyz on Thursday October 21, 2010 @10:40AM (#1815567)

Sure, but just because he hasn't designed an interface doesn't invalidate his opinion. His opinions are mostly from the perspective of his field, which in some ways influence user interface design.

Many user interfaces use elements (he did invent sparklines) and principles he has talked about in his books.

I mean seriously, if Joe User criticizes a user interface is he wrong because he hasn't designed an interface before?

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Re:Edward Tufte's impression of Windows Phone 7 by oloolo on Thursday October 21, 2010 @11:02AM (#1815690)

The difference between an interface designer and a user is:

1. The designer knows many opinions (and due to being exposed to an avalanche of user feedback over the years you really see interfaces in a panopticum). But you never get enough. It's like a drug.

2. The user only knows his opinion. Every user opinion is important--to the designer.

Tufte is just an intelligent eloquent user. His interface design competence is as weak as his photography.

Without working in the field you don't get this perspective on interfaces. Tufte has an intelligent riff, but it's always the same professoral top-down "it-has-to-be-so-and-so", and sometimes he's just plain subjectively irrelevant.

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Re:Edward Tufte's impression of Windows Phone 7 by slantyyz on Thursday October 21, 2010 @04:24PM (#1817299)

Based on the tone of your commentary, I'm not convinced you believe the second part to #2.

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Re:Edward Tufte's impression of Windows Phone 7 by kenjackson on Wednesday October 20, 2010 @08:08PM (#1813693)

That's odd. Most great designers I've seen have pretty good sites. If not a bit gawdy, but certainly never this frumpy.

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