Edward Tufte

[appolyon]

As someone who works in a field where quantitative analysis is often displayed in a very boring and staid manner I've been looking at new ways to present the information.

In my searches I've come across a couple of books on presenting quantitative information by Edward Tufte (www.edwardtufte.com) that are rated very highly by some on Amazon, and not so highly by others.

Has anyone here read any of his books?

 

[A Y]

Yes, they're very good, but they're not recipes. You should read his monograph on PowerPoint as well. Hilarious and scary.

--Andre

 

[appolyon]

Excellent! ... I was think that Visual Display and Visual Explanations would be the two books that would most apply to my field where as Envisioning Information relates more to fields like cartography. Which one have you read?

 

[bbaquiran]

I have Visual Display of Quantitative Information and Visual Explanations.

I recommend you check them out at a library before buying.

 

[Concordia]

Tufte is really a giant in his field, and the PowerPoint article (which appeared in the New Yorker) was a great read.

If you're at all interested in this stuff you should at least look at his books. I don't suppose they are inexpensive, but there's a lot of cool stuff in them.

 

[A Y]

I'd start with the first one (The Visual Display of Quantitative Information), as the rest of kind of like variations on a theme. They suggest some interesting new ideas, but his philosophy and thoughts are pretty well-articulated in the first one.

--Andre

 

[lithium180]

I have all four of his books but only because I went to one of his seminars last year and they were included. They're all illustrated beautifully and have got me thinking in new ways about how visual information is presented in print media.

That being said, although I like to think that I incorporate some of his ideas about layering information and improving readability into my own work, his books are probably more targeted towards those with more advanced experience in graphic design.

What is the chief medium for your presentations? A very practical set of books for those working with Powerpoint is "say it with presentations" and "say it with charts" both by Gene Zelazny, a director of visual communications at McKinsey.

Originally Posted by Andre Yew

I'd start with the first one (The Visual Display of Quantitative Information), as the rest of kind of like variations on a theme. They suggest some interesting new ideas, but his philosophy and thoughts are pretty well-articulated in the first one.

--Andre

Agreed.

 

[appolyon]

Originally Posted by lithium180

What is the chief medium for your presentations?

The chief medium is of course PowerPoint, but there is no prescribed medium, so I'm free to use whatever I like. When preparing reports PP does get used a lot but we also do things in Word, Excel and others.

Originally Posted by lithium180

A very practical set of books for those working with Powerpoint is "say it with presentations" and "say it with charts" both by Gene Zelazny, a director of visual communications at McKinsey.

Thanks for these, I'll look into them.

 

[bbaquiran]

You may also want to check out Presentation Zen, both the book and the blog.