The Visual Display of Quantitative Information

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.

Marginal Paperback, ... compared to written resources.. Not any valuable graphics, etc...I just donated it to our local Liibrary

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 had a need to delve deeper into quantitative information so this book is an outstanding find. I think it was published about 16 years ago. Where can you go on a whim and in three minutes have your whim turn into a purchase which is already being processed and on it's way to you. The book is fantastic as is the Amazon service. The price of the book to me) was high, the service fantastic and the delivery outstanding. Thank you all :)

Great book. Truly one of the best work ever on display of quantitative data.

Its great gook if you want ideas on how to present your data. But there is no math or statistics inluded that explains some of the models used.

Incredible book, highly recommend for anyone pursuing a graduate degree in engineering.

Book is as described. I have found it a little slow paced and dry but how exciting can presenting data be????