Comments on: Video: Jeff Veen on Data Overload

By: Jeffrey Zeldman

Jeffrey Zeldman — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 13:17:07 +0000

Paul:

The White Rabbit called. He wants his hallucinations back.

By: Paul D. Waite

Paul D. Waite — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 12:12:28 +0000

Sorry, I’d love to watch it but I’ve got 163 other unread items in NetNewsWire to get through.

By: Jeffrey Zeldman

Jeffrey Zeldman — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 01:02:00 +0000

will the full video be available for viewing?

Thanks for your interest, Joe! Probably not. Certainly not any time soon.

By: Joe Hoyle

Joe Hoyle — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 21:41:20 +0000

I am not really familiar with how An Event Apart works, in terms of video coverage being freely available, but will the full video be available for viewing?

By: Jeffrey Zeldman

Jeffrey Zeldman — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 20:49:30 +0000

It’s interesting that you say that, George, because that’s exactly what the other 58 minutes of Jeff Veen’s talk were filled with. The excerpt we published is taken from the two minutes of set-up that led to the 58 minutes of designing visual data.

The story about your grandmother is inspiring. You must be proud of her, and rightfully so. She sounds great!

By: George Girton

George Girton — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 19:45:11 +0000

Sorry to say, Jeff Veen didn’t actually _say_ anything about all that data that is so much more than what our grandparents (supposedly) saw and processed. Do we have more information? I remember my grandmother saying how interesting she thought advertising was, because it was a source of information. A graduate of Smith college at a time when most women didn’t go to college at all, Granny taught Latin in high school after she graduated. I inherited her encyclopedia britannica, her webster’s 2nd, and her ability to talk to the CEOs of major corporations. I think if she were alive today she would agree with me that the video of Jeffrey Veen’s transcribed talk is unnecessary, since it doesn’t really give us any useful information. An example of useful information in this context would be the kind of specific graphic examples that are turning up all the time on the edwardtufte dot com website, or on the websites of those who do the graphic redesign of newspapers, or some studies of how different strategies in presenting search engine results are different for the people who type their terms into the search engine.

Of course Mr Veen’s talk went on past the segment shown, but for today’s reader who must always be trimming his information diet, an edited newspaper or magazine offers a better bet for data reduction.