Customer Reviews

Information Graphics: A Comprehensive Illustrated Reference

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As a consultant in the computer industry I often wonder if I am a technical specialist or a technical writer because of the high volume of writing I do. While I have honed my writing skills through both experience and training in Information Mapping, I used to be at a loss about how to best portray technical data in my documents.

Information Graphics: A Comprehensive Illustrated Reference changed that. With this handy reference, which is never far from my keyboard, I have a 450-page catalog of ideas and guidance. What is remarkable is that in the 450 pages are 4,000 illustrations (nearly 10 per page). This book has allowed me to measurably improve the quality of my proposals and deliverables by picking the best possible way to convey information.

Don't let the fact that I am in the computer consulting industry deter you from buying this book - if you are in business, graphic arts, advertising and marketing or just about any other profession that uses data this book will be worth its weight in gold.

Three stars is perhaps harsh, but this book would be much more useful if it had been structured differently. Open this book
and on the first page the entries start rolling: "Abscissa", "Abscissa axis", "Abstract graph", etc. Most readers will be
exhausted before reaching the letters D or E...

Having compiled this exhaustive list of information graphics, one would expect the author to provide some kind of an
overview, guidelines, or some useful grouping of the different types of graphics. The closest thing to such insights is
found in the brief preface (pp. 4-5) and the "Graph" entry (pp. 164-177).

I have to disagree with the reviewers describing this book as helpful "to select the best graphic or chart to convey
information in the most efficient way". When you "turn to this book and and pick the most appropriate graphic type", which
alphabetical entries are you going to look up? And which entries are you going to miss?

This book does serve a purpose as a catalogue and a 4 page bibliography, but the best books for learning how to create
informative and efficient graphics are those written by Edward Tufte and William Cleveland.

I have an array of powerful graphics tools ranging from Microsoft Excel's rich charting add-in, to Visio Professional and Harvard Instant Charts. Despite my technical skills that allow me to quickly produce just about any kind of chart or graphic imaginable, I was never such how to select the best graphic or chart to convey information in the most efficient way before I got this book.

This book is a catalog of ideas and a guide for selecting the best possible way to display information in graphical format. Now, instead of floundering around playing with two or three ways to graphically depict information I turn to this book and pick the most appropriate graphic type. My ability to communicate has dramatically improved because now that I have confidence that I am using the optimal method to display information I find myself using graphics not only more effectively, but more wisely.

Prior to this book my graphics tools were implements that more often than not produced inappropriate charts, giving credence to the adage that "A fool with a tool is still a fool". Since this book I now use my software tools like a skilled craftsman who has the perfect blueprint. With 450 pages of illustrations that show how to depict information visually in the best possible way this book is my perfect blueprint.

This is not a how-to-book. Harris has written a definitive book about data presentation. Topics are organized alphabetically and cross-referenced. Almost every entry is accompanied by illustrations and sometime many of them. I have other books that describe data presentation but they are incomplete compared with Harris's book. I have not seen such an array of presentation illustrations in one place before. Some of the illustrations show plots that I frequently use with interesting additions; for example, the diagonal in pairwise scatter plots typically names variables, Harris has an illustration with histograms for each variable on the diagonal. What a great idea! Almost everyone knows how to construct pie charts. Harris's discussion of pie charts is six pages long. After a brief introduction, he gives a description and terminology, general characteristics, methods to incorporate descriptive and quantitative information, reference angles, showing changes over time, varying the size of circles proportional to the overall value of the data, highlighting slices of the pie, improving legibility, grouping sections of the chart, using pie charts instead of histograms, encodeing additional quantitative data, adding depth, overlapping pie charts, decographs, belt charts, and cirlce graphs. Who could have imagined that lowly pie charts were so versatile and communicative? Some have dogmatically asserted, "Pie charts are a very bad way of displaying information." Although I generally agree, Harris has given me much to think about and I will not be so averse to using them in the future.

I think anyone who solves serious problems by analyzing data will want to own a copy of this book. Being able to organize data into the right visual image can often make no less a difference than that between seeing the answer to the problem vs. getting lost in the complexity and variation in the data.

This is a uniquely comprehensive encyclopedia of graphical techniques with just enough detail on each technique to help you choose the right one for each situation.

There are no long, detailed explanations of principles. What you get are a few illustrations of each type of graph, with a general description of the strengths of that particular technique and several variations to show how it could be applied to different situations which share some central similarity.

One review criticized the alphabetic listing of the techniques, which is a reasonable critique in general. However I think the weakness is mitigated significantly by the way the graphs are grouped together into broad categories once you get to those. The alphabetically listed individual headings are mainly for cross-reference. It seems clear to me that the book wasn't intended to be read from front to back alphabetically, but that the reader would have a rough idea what sort of graph they needed, would start with the heading for that category, and then when neccessary, would refer to the cross-referenced section alphabetically.

In any case, I found it useful to place sticker-tabs on the pages for the main categories of graph that I care most about, and use those tabs as my starting place for choosing the right graphic. There are about ten broad categories of graphs I usually care most about, such as bar, area, column, line, and point graphs, control charts, statistical distribution charts, and time/activity charts. In addition there are about another dozen or so big categories of topics about graphs in general, such as choosing the right aspect ratio, the right font, and the right scale.

Don't get the wrong idea here, none of these topics is covered in great detail, this book is wonderful *index* to visual techniques for showing data for operational purposes but it is not a detailed how-to or an academic treatise on the individual techniques. Also, the book is not intended for creating flashy presentation or marketing graphics, nor does it cover argument maps, truth maps, or any other single sort of conceptual maps in any great detail (although it does touch on the topic in general).

A welcome bonus is that the bibliography is particularly well selected, and not just a list of popular books on graphs. Some of his references are difficult to get and I suspect that some of these sources may even out of print, but some of them like Tukey's work and William Cleveland's texts are well worth searching for.

This is an indispensible encyclopedia of operational information graphics for helping you to help data tell its own story in its clearest and most revealing light, whether you are trying to manage the quality of a process or track down the source of a problem. The examples are extremely well chosen and representative, and the explanations are concise and helpful in a way that lets you use this as a quick reference and not just as a textbook.

This is a very useful compendium for information graphics designers, business professionals and casual chart readers. Graphic terminology is categorized alphabetically and interpreted using easy language and clear illustrations. Examples are sometimes repeated when there is more than one variation in a term. Browsing through the pages brings to mind a wish list of every chart you ever wanted to make!

This book is an overwhelming reference to all types of graphs, maps, tables, diagrams, and charts. Most of the graphics are accompanied by one or more examples along with explanations for when and how to use them. A fun book to browse.

This book is 400+ pages, and I would estimate it contains
5-10 graphics examples per page. If you've got "writer's block"
and can't think of a new way to graphically present your data,
then this is the book for you. Just thumb through it until
something catches your eye, and then read the details about
that kind of graph. Maybe not 100% 'comprehensive' as the
title implies ... but pretty darn close! ;)

For people like me who have to do a lot of different kinds
of graphs, this book is a great resource to have on your shelf.

this is an excellent book if you are working with different types of graphs or charts. we use it as the bible while programming gui tools to create graphs. if you are looking to make meaningful graphs, this book can clue you in to the different types of graphs that will best illustrate your data.

This is not a book that you will read cover to cover; it is a "dictionary" of graphics and the elements to those graphics. It will not teach you how to use them or the appropriate use of them (for that refers to Tufte). I agree with the other comments that the alphabetical arrangement is not useful - just as a dictionary is not useful if you don't know a word. A Thesaurus style would have been more useful, giving alternatives or evolutions of graphics. However some of the entries once found are extremely useful and e,g, Data Distribution graphs, but content is repeated under different entries Ie Combination decision and flow chart is under decision diagram and flow chart (and probably others) , making it hard to find the source reference
It's all black and white, and omits some of the more recent developments (no Heat Maps, Tree Maps, Sparklines).However it's a serious professional reference that I have personally found useful
Could use an update