Beautiful Evidence,   ISBN:9780961392178

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Tufte's fourth in a series on visual data and its representation, following:

The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, 2nd edition
Envisioning Information
Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative

The topic of the forthcoming fifth in the series ("walking, seeing, and constructing" ) is foreshadowed in the pictures of Tufte's landscape sculptures at the end of beautiful evidence.

If you are familiar with Tufte's other books, you already know the treat in store when you pick this one up. Quality paper carries large and sharp reproductions of his examples formatted so that text and related graphics always share the same page. Graphics are repeated if needed when text flows to a following page, and even notes and source credits are printed on the same page and in proximity to the text so that the reader never has to flip from text to image to footnotes and back again to read, study, and enjoy everything Tufte is presenting.

And Tufte's books can be enjoyed on many levels. The chapters present examples of different types of graphic presentation--pictures, sparklines (statistics presented as datawords), arrows, mixed-format words--along with principles of how to use them well (with examples both good and awful). From these sections the reader will find new ideas on how to present data.

Tufte includes chapters on bad data practices and the presentation disaster known as PowerPoint. I once said of a struggling project that we needed managers who know that PowerPoint is not a project management tool; Tufte proves that isn't any good at what it is designed for either, despite its near universal spread through business, government, and education.

Once small nit to pick is the presentation again of the Minard map of Napoleon's army marching to Moscow and back. I think Tufte has used this map as a positive example of graphic presentation of data in every one of his books. It is a great exemplar, perhaps the best, but the reader feels mildly misused paying for the same material in each book.

But that is a small nit. "Beautiful Evidence" extends Tufte's franchise as the master of graphics presentation and is a five-start volume well worth buying, reading, and referencing.

Customer Rating: 

The book reached very quickly to India from the US. Amazing.

Thanks to Amazon.


Nagesh

Customer Rating: 

Let me start on pages 148 and 149. What WAS Tufte thinking? The guru of visual presentation wishes to show us a point-by-point critique of a page of text. But it is laid out as a spread, with the page that is the subject of the critique placed in the center. Across the gutter! It's insulting to the page being critiqued, which I guess is OK. But the points he is making depend on the reader actually being able to _read_ that page. Placing it across the gutter is insulting to the _reader._ The high-quality Smyth-sewn binding might be capable of taking the stress of making the spread lie flat, but it wasn't a risk I cared to take with a brand-new book. I wrote this off as an anomaly until pages 164 and 165, where he does it _again._

_Everyone_ should read "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information," and "Envisioning Information" and "Visual Explanations" are worthy successors. This, unfortunately, isn't.

It's disjointed. It reads like a collection of unconnected articles. At least one chapter, "The Cognitive Style of Powerpoint," has already been published separately. There's nothing wrong with publishing a collection of articles, but this book pretends to be a coherent book on a single subject, "Beautiful Evidence."

It's self-indulgent. After eight chapters dealing with visual presentation of facts, we suddenly come across a chapter about the role of pedestals in sculpture and a photo album of Tufte's own sculptures. Perhaps these are beautiful, but are they evidence? Do these sculptures present quantitative information or help us think about it?

It's pretentious. There is a chapter on "sparklines." He jumps in with an example--fair enough. But he then utters the ex cathedra passive-voice statement, "These little data lines, because of their active quality over time, are named 'sparklines'--small, high-resolution graphics usually embedded in a full context of words, numbers, images." On reading this chapter, I was honestly confused at first. I read it as meaning "sparklines" were an accepted terminology for a current practice, and that he was going to talk about good and bad designs for them, where to use them, do's and don't. It took me some head-scratching and a few double-takes before concluding that it is a neologism which he invented, and that he _wishes_ they were commonly used.

Why didn't he start off modestly, saying something like this: "My colleagues and I have been experimenting with a presentation technique we call 'sparklines.' These are miniature, unlabeled graphs inserted inline into text. They present far more information than a number or word without taking up much more space. In this chapter, I hope I can convince you to consider using sparklines where appropriate. I also hope to show that small graphics inline with text have a venerable history and deserve to be used far more often than they are?"

Of course the book has many wonderful things in it and is well worth having. But Tufte could have used an editor.

Customer Rating: 

This book is beautiful to look at. I think even the strongest critics would agree. For the record, I am glad I own this book.

The question regards practicality and truth in advertising. The author certainly does not deliberately mislead, but many readers of his books (or those who know his reputation), will be expecting a book focusing primarily on the display of data in graphics. Fully two thirds of the book addresses that topic. However, many readers will be surprised to find discussions of dance notation, Albrecht Durer, and Matisse. Even more surprising is the final chapter on sculpture featuring the work of the author. Some will find this bordering on the self-indulgent. Also, many of the visualizations, while stunning, are hand drawn. The discussion of Galileo in particular is striking and thought provoking. However, if you are looking for ways to improve your presentations of data using your PC or Mac, you must make a leap of faith that the insights that you gain will produce practical results by changing your thinking.

Having said that, I enjoyed many of the sections on art, design, and cartography regardless of their immediate applicability to my data visualization work as a data miner and statistics consultant. Perhaps it is because I am a lover of maps and art books. Is that what you expect this book's appeal to be? I found it rich in content, but a critic might describe it as a "coffee table book".

In regards the accurate display of data in graphical form, two discussions standout: the brilliant chapter on powerpoint (also found as The Cognitive Style of Power Point) and the chapter on "sparklines". According to an NY Times interview with the author "sparklines" gets as many google hits as Andy Warhol. Given its popularity on google, one might consider the following strategy: buy The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, 2nd edition, buy the paperback on powerpoint, google "sparklines", and visit the author's site. If you find the work fascinating, attend one of the author's lectures (I did), and/or get all the books.

Customer Rating: 

Good volume for those who may want an slightly deeper insight into visual communication. For the most part the analysis is well crafted, with stimulating insights. Sometimes a bit too repetitive, and obsessed with its own neurosis. For instance in the struggle against Power Point presentations, while I agree with him on most of the analysis, like Tufte also points out quickly early on it is not about PowerPoint but about the use given to it and the paradigm associated. He could be much clearer since I believe that the most important points are not about the software. Also I disagree with his interpretation of intellectual ownership, I also think that rights should not be given exclusively away but do advocate for a public, open, and shared cultural production. But that is another conversation...

All in all, it is a recommendable book, which - even if a little bit too hyped up for what it is supposed to offer - still offers a valuable read.