From a dry (college professor style) video from Edward Tufte regarding a common data density design issue on the iPhone.

(screen shot taken from his video)

He mentions the cartoony interfaces and how many applications on the iPhone do not properly take advantage of the 163 DPI screen.

Looking at the weather example though, I’m not sure that his “fix” is what the average person wants as is. His suggestion, which does get me thinking (the whole point of his books and lectures), is that he’s blown the “at a glance” weather and temperature feature of the original design by making the graphics and fonts too small. When I’m looking for the weather, I’m most commonly interested in today’s weather (or the current weather). A 5 day forecast, although interesting, becomes less useful as general data as the number of days from today increases.

Although I appreciate a good satellite image as the next person :), the image is too big. I see no reason to not have a full size version available as a single “click” or gesture, and thumbnail the image for the rest of us. Increase the font sizes of everything else on the screen, and hopefully return the small weather icons to a usable, again, at a glance size.

How would you change the UI? (Or do you like Edward’s as-is?)