Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6041 in Books
• Published on: 2001-01-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 197 pages

Synopsis
The first edition of Tufte's now classic text on the design of statistical graphics was published in 1983. Tufte published it himself with the help of a second mortgage in order to have complete control over the book's design, which he wanted to reflect the intellectual principles put forth in its c

Customer Reviews

Wonderful examples of how to present information
This is the first of Edward Tufte's brilliant trilogy on how information should be displayed. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information is about pictures of numbers. Envisioning Information is about picturing nouns. Visual Explanations is about picturing verbs. All three are beautiful artefacts in their own right, encapsulating the author's ideas in the actual production of the book. Each is crammed with examples of good and bad practice over the past centuries.

Read it, before you make a really bad mistake.
This book should be a compulsory read for all graphic designers dealing with data visualisation.

The clearly focused chapters, all with superb illustrations, take the reader through some of the best and worst graphics and charts ever printed, with Tufte providing crystalline insights and techniques that will stick in your mind and make your own work better.

Whilst this book deals only with printed graphics, I think that the lessons learned are even more valuable as a foundation for interactive media designers. With the added dimensions of time and user involvement comes the potential to commit far worse design-crimes than many of the examples laid bare in this book!

Like I said: Read it before you make a really bad mistake!

The essential guide to avoiding graphical lies
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.