Customer Reviews:
 Another Good Tufte Book January 24, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This book is about telling a story. Tufte has selected a collection of the most beautiful charts. He then presents each chart design and argues the qualities and defects in each and how sometimes small differences can be used to distort the numbers. If you were to buy a single Tufte book then I'd recommend his other book "Visual Display of Quantitative Information". But if you have a few bucks to spare then this is certainly a nice plus.
displaying statistical information graphically by the master January 24, 2008
14 out of 14 found this review helpful
This is the second book in Ed Tufte's trilogy on graphical displays. It is a sequel to "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information". In this book Tufte shows how color, multiple pictures from different perspectives, graphs, charts and even newspaper text can be used to convey on a flat piece of paper information for high-dimesional data.
Most important is the ability of two-dimensional pictures to display the information of the three dimensional world that the human mind can comprehend through sight. This is the reason for the title to the first chapter "Escaping Flatland".
However, as interesting as the pictures are themselves it is necessary to read the text and look back and forth between pictures to fully appreciate the points of the text. As with his earlier work, Tufte demonstrates the principles of good graphics through effective demonstration of ideas conveyed by good and bad examples. The difference is a broader coverage of techniques and greater emphasis on the good examples.
This book is a nice lead in for the third book, "Visual Explanations", which deals with examples where Tufte believes the graphical displays actually lead to good inferences about a problem under study.
 Your data + this book = Information Splendor January 12, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
As a student of Information Science and an admitted non-designer I decided to study "Envisioning Information" after looking at Mr. Tufte's biography and well-crafted website. I was hoping to gain some insight on the rules of design especially when it came to presenting information clearly in an aesthetically-pleasing way, in teaching me these skills Tufte's book does an admirable job.
From the beginning I was drawn in by the quality of the book itself; flipping through it for a quick skim, one cannot be left unimpressed by the vivid graphics, which serve as examples for the text; it is easy to stop, read-a-little and move on. Another integral part of the presentation is the layout of the pages; the eye is able to capture the main text, the annotations, and give the examples the attention the deserve without feeling a certain pressure to continue. This is in opposition to most instructional books, in which side-bars and special sections pull my eyes away from the main text, serving as distractions rather than additions. Tufte's design makes sure everything on the page is related - meaning the text relates to the image, relates to the annotation. Plus, the main text is set in Bembo, which is a nice loose font; easy to read closely, as well as skim quickly.
"Envisioning Information" is broken up into five main chapters (not counting the Introduction and short Epilogue), each chapter has a main idea that is elucidated primarily by the examples Tufte presents. A criticism of the book is its relative lack of conceptual density (aside from the chapter 'Color and Information,' which, for me, required several close readings) - Tufte has his main ideas and briefly clarifies them, but does not go much beyond that, in fact, much of the text is used to describe the examples which [the description] is only pertinent to the concepts in a passing way. The reliance on visual examples can give the reader more an experience of viewing a slideshow than reading a text. It is these images that have the most potential to teach the reader; while the text can reasonably be understood with a quick reading, a close examination of the visuals is required to truly benefit from "Envisioning Information."
Repetition (Tufte does not shy away from repeating his concepts when examples illustrate similar ideas as previously discussed) and conceptual density issues aside, I found "Envisioning Information" to be what I was looking for. The positive impression this book left on me is not solely because it taught me useful design/presentation ideas as I went through it, but because I know I will be able to enjoy it at length upon future forays into the subject.
All of the above is simply to say, in long-form: it is recommended.
Amazing book for information design July 15, 2007
I am the type of person who dabbles in all kinds of design, and I think of the ideal designer as one who knows a little about everything. Designers design ways of output, whether it be lemon juice from a lemon or ways to fit all vital components in a laptop in the most efficient way. This book is about the output of information from our multidimensional world to the flat paper space, and he does it brilliantly.
It's even worth mentioning the book itself as a good piece of design. All the images are vivid, the pages feel crisp and durable, even the color of the pages I bet was an attention of detail (it's slightly offwhite, but in an extremely good way). It's like good ol' fashioned timeless design.
He covers the subject wide and far, dips into everything from visual illusions to hardcore information displays. Sometimes you wonder where the heck he gets all these wonderful images, they span from the stoneage till today and show the vast variety of ways to display information, both simple and complex.
It is a beautiful book and an absolute must for people interested in the design of information. Actually, I'd say it's a must for anyone interested in information at all, be it for powerpoint or for magazine layout. This will be one of the most intelligent books on my shelf.
 An Obsolete Glance At A Classic Problem June 27, 2007
21 out of 30 found this review helpful
This is a short book, 126 pages. An interesting cursory exploration of the subject. However, it feels like it predates information technology (1990 predates the web by 5 years), and seems to have more in common with how to communicate elements of a hand-drawn map atlas if you were living in the 1700s than it has with using Adobe Illustrator to convey an idea for the web. I bought this book to see if it would help me as a web developer, and instead when it arrived I realized I got a weird coffee table book that feels like it was written in the 1960s, at the latest, to summarize that you can use different icons or pictographs of small size to communicate important ideas without words. (Sorry, I already gave away the story of the book.)
I know this review isn't going to get very popular marks, but, put simply, this book is probably good for professional or student pure designers, but it's useless for me. I honestly don't think the book targets web designers, but somebody here reviewed that it was "great" for web designers, so because of that remark I bought it. Sorry, but I don't see the applicability. But then, I only skimmed over the book before I put it back on Amazon Marketplace.
While one should normally never judge a book by its cover, in this case I think you should.
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