I recommend Edward Tufte’s books on information visualization (The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Envisioning Information, and Visual Explanations). I’m surprised that I haven’t seen these mentioned on LW before (except in passing once or twice). They’re short but full of clear thinking about using graphic design to effectively communicate scientific reasoning. And even if you don’t think you have much to learn from them, they’re still beautiful books.
(I’ve heard his newest book, Beautiful Evidence, is not as good and mostly recycles material from the other three.)
His books and his one day graphics class are both excellent. There is some noise in the signal. The best part of his class:
he has a first edition of Galileo’s first “natural philosophy” book and he has one of the employees at the venue (after donning white linen gloves) pass the book before the face of each student for fifteen seconds. The book is open to a particularly ingenious use of graphics by Galileo. He uses a number of Galileo examples in the books and in his class.
Also he has a hilarious demo on the misuse of powerpoint.
The worst part of the class: he has a bunch of slides showing off the metal sculptures (fifteen or twenty) that dot his huge Connecticut home site. If you are apathetic toward the aesthetics of modern art, your eyes will glaze over and you may be wondering what the numbers on financial statements are.
His treatment of the misuse of technical data presentation leading to the NASA space shuttle disasters is a classic in biased wrong reasoning.
Second the vote for Tufte’s books, which are extremely well done and almost unique in their contents.
Also second the criticism of both his latest book and his seemingly insatiable desire to show off his lumpy metal art (pictures of it fill several pages of “Beautiful Evidence”).
I recommend Edward Tufte’s books on information visualization (The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Envisioning Information, and Visual Explanations). I’m surprised that I haven’t seen these mentioned on LW before (except in passing once or twice). They’re short but full of clear thinking about using graphic design to effectively communicate scientific reasoning. And even if you don’t think you have much to learn from them, they’re still beautiful books.
(I’ve heard his newest book, Beautiful Evidence, is not as good and mostly recycles material from the other three.)
His books and his one day graphics class are both excellent. There is some noise in the signal. The best part of his class:
he has a first edition of Galileo’s first “natural philosophy” book and he has one of the employees at the venue (after donning white linen gloves) pass the book before the face of each student for fifteen seconds. The book is open to a particularly ingenious use of graphics by Galileo. He uses a number of Galileo examples in the books and in his class.
Also he has a hilarious demo on the misuse of powerpoint.
The worst part of the class: he has a bunch of slides showing off the metal sculptures (fifteen or twenty) that dot his huge Connecticut home site. If you are apathetic toward the aesthetics of modern art, your eyes will glaze over and you may be wondering what the numbers on financial statements are.
His treatment of the misuse of technical data presentation leading to the NASA space shuttle disasters is a classic in biased wrong reasoning.
Second the vote for Tufte’s books, which are extremely well done and almost unique in their contents.
Also second the criticism of both his latest book and his seemingly insatiable desire to show off his lumpy metal art (pictures of it fill several pages of “Beautiful Evidence”).