Customer Reviews

The Visual Display of Quantitative Information

5 star:		(35)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

You know what's so good about this book? The research, that's what. In showing both good and bad graphic design, Tufte has examples from as far back as 1686, and many examples from the 18th,19th & 20th centuries and from many different countries.

Good graphic design, he argues, reveals the greatest number of ideas in the shortest time with the least ink in the smallest space. Interestingly, some of the best examples of this come from the pre-computer era, when graphics had to be drawn by hand (and therefore more thought had to go into their design, rather than the author just calling up the Bar Graph template on the desktop.) For example, that picture you can see on the front cover of the book is actually a train timetable that packs a whole list of arrivals and departures at many different stations into a single little picture. A better example (and the "best statistical graphic ever drawn") shows Napoleon's route through Europe. It shows a) the map b) where he went c) how many people were in his army at each point and d) the temperature on the way back that killed off his army. At a glance you can see the factors that led to his army losing. AND it was drawn by hand in 1885 and is little more than a line drawing!

He also gives examples of really bad design, (including "the worst graphic ever to make it to print"), and shows what makes it so bad. His examples prove that information-less, counter-intuitive graphics can still look dazzlingly pretty, even though they're useless. In some examples, he shows how small changes can make the difference between an awful graphic and a really good one. My favourite example of this is how he drew the inter-quartile ranges on the x and y axes of a scatterplot, thus adding more information to the graphic without cluttering it up.

In summary, there's a lot more to good graphic design than being an Adobe guru. Reading this book made me feel like a more discerning viewer of graphics!

This book, and the two companion volumes ("Envisioning Information" and "Visual Explanations") are must-haves for anyone who is in the business or producing or interpreting statistical information.

Tufte starts with a simple proposition: graphs and graphics that represent statistical data should tell the truth. It's amazing how often designers of such graphics miss this basic point. Tufte clearly and entertainingly elucidates the most common "graphical lies" and how to avoid them.

Read this book and you'll never look at a newspaper or presentation graphics the same way again -- you'll be left wondering if the author *intended* to lie about what the data were saying, or if he/she just didn't know any better.

Another reviewer claimed that this book talks about how to make graphics accurate, not beautiful. He's right in some sense, but who cares? There are a million books on how to make "pretty" graphical displays, but precious few on how to make useful ones. These books are they.

This book will teach you some basics on how to most effectively present quantitative information using various sorts of graphs and charts. Afterwards you will know how and why you should get rid of chart junk (gridlines, tick marks, ornaments, etc.) or alternatively using some of the examples on bad design presented, you will see how to manipulate your audience using the "Lie Factor". Actually the advice given in this book could easily fit within just one piece of paper, but then: This book is simply beautiful. It is state of the art for printed books, you almost feel a passion for it. Mr. Tufte takes his own medicine: No words in this book are superfluous. Illustrations and examples are carefully selected and reprinted with the utmost care. It takes no more than some hours to read the book, but afterwards you can use more than just a few hours to study the examples of timeless graphic displays. The only reason why this book is short of five stars is the following: Mr. Tufte uses quite some space providing statistics about charts found in different publications (chart junk percentages, lie factor. Personally I find this information fairly irrelevant and would have preferred more examples of chart remakes. However this book is definately still a MUST have!

True. One boss replaced another and cleared the "old junk" from the office bookshelves. I picked this gem up and out of a trash can, hurried to my office, and did a little dance with the book clutched to my chest!

In the past eight years, I have read and re-read this book more times than I can remember - always amazed at its clarity and always learning something new. I've used the cut-thru-the-crap ideas it holds to get my point across in business, research, education, manufacturing, and web design. Anytime somebody tells me I have a knack for simplifying complicated ideas I smile and think of this book. IT'S GREAT!

Oh, and the new boss? He's gone.

This was the first of three books written by Tufte on graphical displays. This book has been heralded by famous statisticians and average readers as an eloquent description of the how to and how not to make graphs. Now in its sixteenth printing, this is still a classic and the pictures tell the story along with the prose.

The Visual Display of Quantitative Information is a rather dry title for what turns out to be a supremely interesting and innovative study of how graphics can explain quantitative information.

Tufte is the pre-eminent scholar of graphical representation and this book is a clear example of why. The book outlines Tufte's theories for better displaying data in graphical forms. According to Tufte's well-argued point of view, simpler is often better--good graphics are able to convey multiple levels of information with minimal ink. He rails against unnecessary "chartjunk" which merely takes up space without conveying any information and he is quick to note that "pretty" graphics are often the least informative. Tufte's theories for achieving graphical success are presented in a straightforward manner and are always highlighted by examples. Some of the most interesting sections of the book show how Tufte would transform an otherwise ordinary graphic into a more powerful one--these sections clearly illustrate Tufte's theories and enable the reader to learn from the mistakes of other designers.

Tufte's book is extremely well researched and he consistently uses graphics from various time periods to highlight the points of his argument and to illustrate the good and bad of graphic design. He writes quite passionately about his "favorite" graphic (Charles Minard's time series map of Napoleon's march into Russia) and is equally passionate about exposing the lack of data within bad graphics (he calls one "the worst graphic ever to find its way into print").

Tufte is a clear and compact writer and is very good at explaining complex ideas both in words and in graphical form. While the book sounds very academic, it is certainly accessible to the general reader. This is a must read for graphic designers and those who seek to present quantitative information successfully (e.g. scientists, statisticians, students, businesspeople, etc.). Tufte's ideas are simple and broad enough to translate into a wide range of graphical areas--readers will be able to conceptualize and present data much more effectively after reading this book. Readers will also have a much sharper eye when viewing other's graphics. In a time when computer programs have largely automated graph-making (usually with bad results), Tufte's book is a helpful guide to making graphs and charts as effective and informative as they can be.

Instead I give this book regularly to my students & wish to goodness that more of my colleagues had copies. From the opening pages -where Tufte gives us 4 data sets that are statistically indistinguishable but graphicly at different points of the compass- through the beautifully rendered examples of classical and modern examples of meaningful graphics & "chartjunk" Tufte serves as a wry, witty, and informative guide to the perils & joys of informing or confusing an audience with charts and graphs.
Although in some ways a polemic against the misuse of graphical techniques, Tufte never loses his sense of humor & gives us plenty of really GOOD examples as well as a harsh deconstruction of some truly horrendous images. While this, the first in what has become a series, predates the muddy dawn of computer graphical "presentations" the basic principles outlined in its pages are every bit as applicable to the PowerPoint generation as they were to transparencies & posters. Buy it. read it Use it.

I have heard this book described as a really good coffee-table book. It's content, while often technical and very much focused on the theory of graphs and diagrams and data and information, very practically demonstrates the impact of how quantitative information is visually presented, and shows many alternatives that are quantum improvements on the originals. It's easy to draw out the principles that Tufte demonstrates, and to apply them to your own work.

The book's examples are drawn from many interesting areas such as the New York State Budget, train schedule graphs, irrigation maps of 1972, heights of college students, the price of crude oil and the thermal conductivity of tungsten. Through these case studies, Tufte makes conscious for the reader the way in which humans read visual information and how poorly the majority of our visual information is designed in respect of this.

It has greatly influenced the work I do in helping people design reports of organisational performance information, how they choose and format charts in particular. I enthusiastically recommend this book to anyone who regularly reports or presents data and information to others to assist their decision making.

The title makes this sound like a specialist monograph. it is not; it will change the way you think about presenting informnation and ideas. If that is part of your life -- teacher, academic, manager, web site developer -- this book will open your eyes. The best part of the book is all the wonderful imaginative examples Tufte quotes. He draws some general conclusions from some examples, which is useful, but mostly he just looks at what works, and contrasts with what doesn't. Tufte's next twoo books are also excellent, but this one is the best -- simply a msterpiece

the examples are incredible. this book is one of the most beautiful books I have ever read both for its content and execution. The advice Tufte gives with regard to the presentation of information will only become more important in the future. Whether reading the newspaper or writing a technical report, the proper display of quantitative information is an invaluable skill. this book helps you to think clearly and concisely. one of the best books of all time.