Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative

One of the many delighful aspects of this book is the diverse and intriging sources of examples, ranging from 19th century bookplates and 20th century art to information kiosks and scientific visualisation. For me the most memorable section was his contrasting the visual displays presented to NASA advising them to abort the disasterous Challanger launch with Frost's investigation into the colera epidemic in 19th-century London. It might sound vague hand waving, but Tufte presents his ideas with incredible clarity and insight and his conclusions are applicable to a wide range of fields, from computer user interface designs to powerpoint presentations and scientific analysis of data.

You can probably guess I really enjoyed this book; as well as being engaging and informative it is beautifully written and stunningly designed. It's philisophic approach will not immediately appeal to everyone, but I enthusiasticly recommend it as essential reading for anyone who needs to communicate complex ideas visually.

For those of you interested in this subject area, I also recommend "Information Architects", edited by Richard Saul Wurman, which although more graphic design oriented has numerous excellent examples of the design processes behind good visual communication


Author May Not Have Read "The Abilene Paradox".   July 22, 1997
0 out of 6 found this review helpful

Not having read Visual Explanations... however, after reading a few reviews which mention the author stating that the Challener disaster occurred due to a "visual communication breakdown", prompts me to guess he hasn't read "The Abilene Paradox and Other Meditations On Management" by Jerry B. Harvey. As a designer, now I'll have to read his book. Alice's Shoe Shop alices@interlog.com


"Visual Explanations" could've spared some contrivances.   May 16, 1997
6 out of 11 found this review helpful

Edward Tufte set high standards for himself with his previous books. Consequently the weaknesses of his newest stand out more than they would have otherwise. As usual, his bad examples have more impact than any amount of instruction or philosophizing, especially the "hyped Venus" animation from the Magellan probe. Other topics get a bit confusing.

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


Pictures Of Verbs   April 25, 1997
1 out of 2 found this review helpful

Tufte has added one more to a series of fun, beautiful and challenging books. This book is an example of just how enjoyable information can be. David Gravelle, Technical Writer at http://www.usr.com/intransit


Every software engineer/teacher/illustrator/editor needs it   April 11, 1997
7 out of 8 found this review helpful

Oh, lovely! For those who know Tufte's earlier books, all I need to say is "he's written another."

It looks like he publishes one every seven years ("The Visual Display of Quantitative Information" in 1983, "Envisioning Information" in 1990) so I think I'm going to budget $0.02 per day and get them all.

Perhaps the most significant chapter is his analysis of how bad graphic presentation contributed to the loss of the space shuttle "Challenger." Basically, he believes that data were available which could and should have led to a decision to cancel the launch, but that the engineers failed to communicate it to the decision-makers. And he shows exactly how and why they failed.

Left brain? right brain? Tufte shows us visual elegance in the service of quantitative thinking.