All the way back to Galileo sharing about Jupiter’s moons, science has relied upon visualizations to communicate its findings. Some things are just better depicted visually instead of through words. In contemporary society, information graphics have played an increasingly larger role as computers quickly translate data into a more accessible format. Newspapers and Internet websites have made them commonplace. Even though this book was written in 1990, before ubiquitous computing, it identifies the philosophical and graphical issues in mass presentations. Edward Tufte, the modern academic master of visualization, provides this text to teach us how to think about and make better visualizations.
Like the rest of his books, this work has a strongly artistic bent. Most of the visualizations involve some craftsmanship from a visual artist. In 1990, computer graphics, especially of massive datasets, were primitive compared to today. Still, the principles for what looks good – i.e., what communicates – remain constant. This book seeks to teach us how to read graphs by using those principles and how to communicate by incorporating those principles in our own graphs.
I’ve read a lot of books about visualizations, and Tufte is as good as it gets. This book is an appropriate introduction to reading and making graphs. Graphical interpretation of data is a mainstay of almost every academic field these days. While religions have been often rooted in the visual arts, modern scientific explorations have combined the artistry with data. These days, it’s hard to navigate a train station or a car trip without some sort of visualization. This book teaches us how to do so more effectively and how to leverage those insights to lead others more effectively. Anyone interested in better visual communication can benefit from books like this.
Envisioning Information
By Edward R. Tufte
Copyright (c) 1990
Graphics Press
ISBN13 9780961392116
Page Count: 126
Genre: Visualizations
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