Getting Tufte
According to the Mappa Mundi article, Edward Tufte "...believes that the task of information design is to make it easier for the information consumer to compare data relevant to a cause and effect process. Tufte teaches (and he is, most of all, a teacher) that we must “enforce visual comparisons” and “show causality”. The best information displays allow people to understand large and complex data sets, not just in terms of what the data is, but also in terms of the process it represents." (1999-09-18)
The link address is: http://mappa.mundi.net/trip-m/tufte/index.html