Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative (Gebundene Ausgabe)

This third book in the triology on "information presentation" is as splendid as the previous two books. In this volume the emphasis is, as the title suggests, on methods for creating powerful illustrations and graphics that could help you present your knowledge in a non-disputable way.

The most intriguing section in this book without doubt the chapter on the Challenger disaster in 1986. The rocket engineers back then had worries about the launch on Jan 28. However they were not at all able to communicate their worries to NASA and so it ended... In a worrying few number of pages, Mr. Tufte, dissects the data presented to NASA by the engineers and creates a information redesign which makes it clear to anyone that the launch should have been postponed.

I still belive that book 2, "Envisioning Information" is the most required. Buy that book and if you love is (as I do), then buy the other two books as well.

The layout of this book is fully in thread with the others in the series. Beautiful, engaging, ingenious, etc. The print quality is second to none - you really have a feeling that the crew behind these books have been nursing their babies.

So Mr. Tufte - where is number four in the series?

This book may not for everyone, however. It does not contain ready-to-use concepts nor does it present a comprehensive solution for displaying dynamic information. What it does contain, are keen observations and commentary on past attempts at dynamic information display. The relation of each chapter to the next is not readily apparent and is quite precarious in fact. What results, is a book that reads better if each chapter is taken independently. In short, this book will be more rewarding to those willing to spend time to ponder over Tufte's observations. Conversely, the book will appear to have a lack of focus to those in a rush to find solutions.

Tufte's criticism of Richard Feynman's O-ring "experiment" makes sense only because both Tufte and Feynman imprecisely called it that and not what it really was: a demonstration. Was Feynman supposed to do in two minutes what all prior researchers had not?

Tufte goes from critiquing illustrations of magic tricks to equating a lecture with a magic show. His advice to keep things short and sweet, leave the audience wanting more, and the like are off-topic.

The author may be reaching for a grand theory of visual communication, and more power to him. However, the word "confection" is an unfortunate choice. It stinks too much of the disparaging phrase "eye candy" to be taken seriously. I would have preferred a term that might imply a connection with an electronic communications buzzword like "worldbuilding." Calvino's literary archeology, even live theater or filmmaking might have yielded preferable analogies.

Quibbles aside, this is a bargain at any price. It offers much better advice to interface designers than any overlarded, pseudo-psychedelic coffee table book I've seen so far on Website building