I've been a big fan of Tufte for a long time; I once drove 14 hours to attend one of his seminars during one of my school vacations. I think your example is improperly applied. The whole point of an SRS is information priority. It scans for you. You don't need to look at all the items because the system already knows which ones you have trouble with. And it presents them all to you on a schedule determined to be most beneficial for your learning and retention.
Not only that, your idea of 500 kanji on one page is exactly what Tufte fights against. His whole point is parsing, collecting, layering, linking, highlighting, and distinguishing masses of information. One long list is the epitome of what he thinks is wrong with information presentation.
Tufte's principals would be best applied to something like the upcoming Trinity or a Japanese electronic dictionary. Computers allow information to exist in multiple assignments rather than in isolated places. For example, a computer allows you to have on the screen a kanji, animated stroke count, lists of compounds, notations for words you already know, readings, irregular readings, etc all hyperlinked and extendable.
All that to say, I appreciate the convenience of word lists and use them myself to great benefit. But not for the reasons you listed.
--resolve beat me to the punch about SRS review--
Not only that, your idea of 500 kanji on one page is exactly what Tufte fights against. His whole point is parsing, collecting, layering, linking, highlighting, and distinguishing masses of information. One long list is the epitome of what he thinks is wrong with information presentation.
Tufte's principals would be best applied to something like the upcoming Trinity or a Japanese electronic dictionary. Computers allow information to exist in multiple assignments rather than in isolated places. For example, a computer allows you to have on the screen a kanji, animated stroke count, lists of compounds, notations for words you already know, readings, irregular readings, etc all hyperlinked and extendable.
All that to say, I appreciate the convenience of word lists and use them myself to great benefit. But not for the reasons you listed.
--resolve beat me to the punch about SRS review--
Edited: 2008-01-11, 12:36 am