With Visual Explanations, Edward R. Tufte adds a third volume to his indispensable series on information display. The first, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, which focuses on charts and graphs that display numerical information, virtually defined the field. The second, Envisioning Information, explores similar territory but with an emphasis on maps and cartography. Visual Explanations centers on dynamic data--information that changes over time. (Tufte has described the three books as being about, respectively, "pictures of numbers, pictures of nouns, and pictures of verbs.") Like its predecessors, Visual Explanations is both intellectually stimulating and beautiful to behold. Tufte, a self-publisher, takes extraordinary pains with design and production. The book ranges through a variety of topics, including the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger (which could have been prevented, Tufte argues, by better information display on the part of the rocket's engineers), magic tricks, a cholera epidemic in 19th-century London, and the principle of using "the smallest effective difference" to display distinctions in data. Throughout, Tufte presents ideas with crystalline clarity and illustrates them in exquisitely rendered samples.


From Library Journal
Tufte is the master of visualization. You can immediately add this new work alongside his previous gems, Visual Display of Quantitative Information (1983) and Envisioning Information (1990, both from Graphics). Tufte's discussions take place in a world where specific software and certain parameters of the web don't exist?we all know such limitations are always changing anyway. His historical perspective allows Tufte to demonstrate simple, timeless guidelines that are independent of special stylesheets or the latest upgrade from Netscape. In this volume, Tufte illustrates not only traditional areas such as statistics, repetitions, and multiples but also magic and compositional allegories.Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.


The New York Times Book Review, Richard J. Meislin
For more than 15 years, Edward R. Tufte has been on a crusade to educate people who want to explain the world visually to others ... In his new volume, Tufte, who teaches information design at Yale, is once again full of compelling and amusing examples, intelligently collected and attractively displayed ... The printing once again is lavish and beautiful, and the book is alive with instructive visual fun...


Midwest Book Review
This third Tufte book on the display of information is not for novices: it provides pictures of verbs, cause and effect, and other dynamic patterns of information display, exploring how visual evidence influences computer interfaces, design strategies, and how information is transferred and represented. This should hold appeal beyond the arts, into the scientific and computer realms.


Book Info
Describes design strategies - the proper arrangement in space and time of images, words, and numbers - for presenting information about motion, process, mechanism, cause, and effect. Examines the logic of depicting quantitative evidence.

FROM OUR EDITORS

Few would disagree: Life in the information age can be overwhelming. Through computers, the Internet, the media, and even our daily newspapers, we are awash in a seemingly endless stream of charts, maps, infographics, diagrams, and data. Visual Explanations is a navigational guide through this turbulent sea of information. The book is an essential reference for anyone involved in graphic, web, or multimedia design, as well as for educators and lecturers who use graphics in presentations or classes.

ANNOTATION

This new book is sure to become a classic; it is a literate, thoughtful, incisive exposition on the logic of depicting quantitative evidence. It describes design strategies with details on motion, processes and mechanisms. It also explains visual and statistical thinking, with information on display repetition and change. Practical examples from engineering, medicine and technical manuals reinforce the book's instruction.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Riveting ideas on presenting better information design. Few would disagree: Life in the information age can be overwhelming. Through computers, the Internet, the media, and even our daily newspapers, we are awash in a seemingly endless stream of charts, maps, infographics, diagrams, and data. Visual Explanations, the latest book by Edward R. Tufte, a Yale design professor, is a navigational guide through this turbulent sea of information. The book is an essential reference for anyone involved in graphic, Web, or multimedia design, as well as for educators and lecturers who use graphics in presentations or classes.

Visual Explanations is the third volume in Tufte's series on the science of information design. Few scholars have been able to present the theories behind this rapidly evolving field in such a fascinating, approachable, and witty manner. Like its predecessors, Envisioning Information and The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, this book is exquisitely designed and printed. It includes built-in flaps to emphasize before-and-after comparisons. With its elegant, classical typesetting and reproductions of medieval engravings, one feels like one has discovered some obscure or antiquated tome, the strange dissertations of a forgotten philosopher.

However, Tufte's ideas are contemporary and increasingly relevant: What are the most effective ways to present information? Visual Explanations offers numerous examples that illustrate better methods of communicating complicated ideas in print, in presentations, and on the computer screen. Tufte's critical eye is quick to suggest improvements to the examples he cites: He will often redesign a graphic or chart, and his changes offer helpful guidelines on how to put theory into practice.

The first section of the book reveals the history behind our current methods of depicting information. Many conveniences we often take for granted, such as graph paper, pie charts, and topographic maps, have evolved over the past 5,000 years as scientists and statisticians have found better ways to put onto paper the events and phenomena they observed in daily life.

The historical background in this book covers a diverse range of topics. How do we explain the illusions behind a magician's tricks? What is the best way to show the size and scale of Giacometti's sculptures? What are the shortcomings of a supercomputer's animated video of a thunderstorm? Could better organization of data have prevented the tragic explosion of the space shuttle Challenger? The second part of the book considers strategies that can be used to arrange information in a more visually exciting way, not only on the printed page but also on the video and computer screen. The daily log, or "cyclogram," drawn by a Soviet cosmonaut orbiting hundreds of miles above Earth is contrasted with the engravings of ancient astronomers. Other examples that Tufte has culled from history include a Degas sculpture, ancient letters engraved on the Trajan columns, and some mugshot photographs of criminals indicted in the Watergate conspiracy.

The latter section of the book also delves into the design of computer interfaces and Web sites, whose limited screen resolution makes the presentation of text and graphics particularly challenging. This concise discussion shows how to expand the visual capacities of the screen and is extremely helpful. For anyone who would like to better organize, manage, and present information, Visual Explanations is truly an enjoyable reading experience and an invaluable reference to have on your bookshelf. -- Philip Krayna

FROM THE CRITICS

New York Times

The da Vinci of data.

Washington Post

A new book that you simply must see. Delightfully, visually arresting, riveting ideas on how to tell compelling stories of cause and effect using numbers and images.

Online

If this book were a houseit would have been designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

Print

A truly monumental exploration of information design. Like its predecessors, Visual Explanations is not only written by also designed and published by Tufte himself....with intelligence, erudition, and grace.

Wired

Few teachers are as accomplished as Edward Tufte when it comes to demonstrating why good design matters in the world. His latest book is a knockout. Straightforward, witty, packed with vivid examples. Read all 11 "From The Critics" >

AUTHOR DESCRIPTION