Book Commentary 39 How Tufte extracts principles from examples. Edward Tufte's Visual Explanations: A Tapestry of Images, Comparisons, and Principles Russell K. Needharn The Oxford Associates, Inc. P.O. Box 70 Oxford, OH 45056 rneedham@toainc.com It is no surprise to those of us who have been involved with computers and documentation in the past several years that the use of visual images is more popular than ever before. And why not? Few people would deny that an attractive page layout accompanied by interesting-looking charts and graphics can enhance even the driest technical material, making the reader more apt to read and understand more of the content. The speed by which even a casual computer user can create these images has transformed, for better or worse, the look of everything from the printed page to the electronic page, from billboards to corporate reports. How many times have we seen people in business and industry begin to enhance their presentations by using a stock clip art image, then poke it, prod it, pull it, stretch it, and add a sufficient amount of text to it until it becomes their own unique creation? And how many times have readers and live audiences
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