“A picture is worth a thousand words,” so the saying goes. Thus, an effective visualization, enriched by information, must count for so much more. But a misconstrued visualization, unfortunately, can lead to horrific outcomes from misinterpretations. How can we refine our visual thinking so that we can infer correct deductions while ignoring misplaced sketches? Visualization guru Edward Tufte teaches us how to reason about our world through informative displays in this helpful guide, replete with engaging prose, topics, and images. He instructs designers and readers of visualizations (which includes almost everyone today!) how to hone their interpretive crafts.
Tufte is the all-time great in the art of visualization. Alongside graphical skill, he brings a love of intellectual history and art history to make readers’ minds spin. Even though his original field was political science, his interests span every form of scientific knowledge garnered by humans throughout the centuries. Therefore, even 25+ years later, the weight of his words surpasses the judgments of everyone else in the field.
This specific book addresses how to interpret complex images (“visual explanations”) to help everyday life and professional work. He harkens to great intellectual discoveries like the rings of Saturn and the wave nature of light to illustrate foundational principles of information visualization. Although his insights about the computer have become dated because of the quickly evolving technology, his philosophy has stood the test of almost three decades of time. In fact, in an era of big data, his wisdom about interpreting complex displays pertains more, not less, to today, and his principles likewise become more prescient.
Visual Explanations contains chapters on topics like: magic (the ultimate form of graphical deception), micro/macro effects, “visual confections” (a series of images to tell a complex story), parallel displays, and statistics in visuals. His thoroughness in his entire series of four visualization books will stand for generations as the classic works in the field. After reading them, all practitioners need do is to spruce up on recent technological developments in display.
Obviously, those involved in the production of visualizations will glean the most from this book. Those in scientific discourse will benefit the most, but those in communication fields will also benefit from being able to mentally clean up others’ mistakes. With computing’s advance, visualizations increasingly convey key parts of life to the general public, so interpretive literacy has become key to the general reader. Business folks, who might be slightly put off by the scientific nature of the content, will nonetheless find many pearls of wisdom to take home. Each of Tufte’s works distill years, if not decades, of work into less than 200 pages, and his rich insight deserves to be pondered for generations.
Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative
By Edward R. Tufte
Copyright (c) 1997
Graphics Press
ISBN13 9780961392123
Page Count: 156
Genre: Visualization, Presentation
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