With your background in web development have you read things like Krug’s Don’t Make Me Think and William’s The Non-Designer’s Design Book? These are focused more on the design aspect of web however they contain some good underlying principles for data visualization as well.
Tufte’s book are all great for underlying principles even though, as you noted, they aren’t focused on modern technologies. Beautiful Evidence from 2006 has some updated thoughts but he still borrows heavily from his earlier books.
For general multimedia concepts, Mayer’s Multimedia Learning is good from a human learning perspective (my background).
You can learn an astonishing amount about web development without ever having to think about how it’ll look to another human being. In a professional context, I know enough to realise when I should hand it over to a specialist, but I won’t always have that luxury.
You are definitely right in that we need to think about how it will look to another human being.
If you are interested in pursuing this idea further, Don Norman has written a number of books about design in general. These are not about graphic design but just design thinking. The Psychology of Everyday Things is a classic and Emotional Design builds on the work of people like Antonio Damasio with regard to the role of emotion in cognition. Norman has another book called The Design of Everyday Things which I have not read but I imagine is a great read as well.
All of these works emphasize the role of design in helping humans accomplish their goals. Some practitioners of data analytics view the output of prose, charts, tables and graphs as the final product. In most cases however the final product of a data analytics effort is a decision. That decision might be to do more research, to buy one company versus another or propose a new policy to Congress. Regardless of the nature of the decision, how well you design the output will have an impact on the quality of the decision made.
With your background in web development have you read things like Krug’s Don’t Make Me Think and William’s The Non-Designer’s Design Book? These are focused more on the design aspect of web however they contain some good underlying principles for data visualization as well.
Tufte’s book are all great for underlying principles even though, as you noted, they aren’t focused on modern technologies. Beautiful Evidence from 2006 has some updated thoughts but he still borrows heavily from his earlier books.
For general multimedia concepts, Mayer’s Multimedia Learning is good from a human learning perspective (my background).
I found Data Points: Visualization That Means Something to be a good modern guide.
From my perspective, I am glad you are looking down the road and recognizing that after the data are analyzed the analysis must be communicated.
This is all kinds of useful. Thanks!
You can learn an astonishing amount about web development without ever having to think about how it’ll look to another human being. In a professional context, I know enough to realise when I should hand it over to a specialist, but I won’t always have that luxury.
You are definitely right in that we need to think about how it will look to another human being.
If you are interested in pursuing this idea further, Don Norman has written a number of books about design in general. These are not about graphic design but just design thinking. The Psychology of Everyday Things is a classic and Emotional Design builds on the work of people like Antonio Damasio with regard to the role of emotion in cognition. Norman has another book called The Design of Everyday Things which I have not read but I imagine is a great read as well.
All of these works emphasize the role of design in helping humans accomplish their goals. Some practitioners of data analytics view the output of prose, charts, tables and graphs as the final product. In most cases however the final product of a data analytics effort is a decision. That decision might be to do more research, to buy one company versus another or propose a new policy to Congress. Regardless of the nature of the decision, how well you design the output will have an impact on the quality of the decision made.
I’ve read The Design of Everyday Things. You don’t need to read The Psychology of..., as it’s the same book, renamed for marketing reasons.