The Visual Display of Quantitative Information

danny writes "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information is a recognised classic on statistical graphics; to the 1983 original, this 2001 edition adds some additional graphics, extra colour, and corrections. It is a broad-ranging work, covering history, theory and practice and, despite the formal title and scholarly references, not at all narrowly academic. It assumes only a very basic understanding of statistics." Read on for the rest of Danny's review. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information author Edward R. Tufte pages 197 publisher Graphics Press 2001 rating 10 reviewer Danny Yee ISBN 0961392142 summary the classic work on statistical graphics

Tufte begins with the different kinds of informational graphics (maps, time-series, narratives, and relational graphics), describing their origins and evolution and presenting examples of excellence in their design. Many of these are fascinating in their own right -- two that I particularly appreciated were Minard's depiction of Napoleon's disastrous retreat from Moscow and an 11th century map of China.

"For many people the first word that comes to mind when they think about statistical charts is 'lie.'" Tufte gives examples of different kinds of deceit in graphics, along with some principles for maintaining graphical integrity. He goes on to consider the reasons for the poor quality of many informational graphics: one is the relegation of their design to those with art training but without an understanding of either the substance of the material or of quantitative (statistical) methods.

Part two begins by introducing some terminology and theory for describing graphics. The principle "Above all else show the data" is formalised as maximization of the data-ink ratio, and illustrated with some "before and after" examples of erasure of redundant or non-data-ink. Tufte excoriates various kinds of "chartjunk": moire vibration (the disconcerting effect caused by repeating patterns), the overuse of grids, and the "ducks" created when the design takes precedence over everything else.

Tufte gives specific suggestions for the design of box plots, bar charts, and scattergraphs. He argues for the use of multifunctioning graphical elements -- building data measures or grids out of the data itself, for example, by using labels that also show the end points of the data ranges. And he looks at ways of maximizing data density (within reason) and using "small multiples," or repeated smaller graphics. A final chapter steps back to consider the balance between text, text-tables, tables, semi-graphics, and graphics -- "Given their low data-density and failure to order numbers along a visual dimension, pie charts should never be used" -- and to touch on the aesthetics of proportion and scale.

All of this is liberally illustrated with examples, drawn from across the natural and social sciences. Despite the space devoted to these, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information packs a lot in, avoiding repetition or verbosity. Tufte's own tables and graphs are appropriately effective and the volume as a whole is elegantly put together: though it's more than that, it could be appreciated simply as a work of art. Tufte also finds room to survey publication practices across a select sample of international newspapers and journals, comparing the data density of graphics and the proportion of relational graphics (involving at least two variables that aren't temporal or spatial).

Most obviously, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information should be read by those involved in writing, editing, or designing documents or displays that contain statistical graphics -- from professional editors, technical writers, academics, and journalists right down to high school students. But others may appreciate it too: it has changed the way I look at informational graphics.

Danny has written over 700 book reviews. You can purchase The Visual Display of Quantitative Information from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the (recently updated) book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Comments

$12 more at amazon

[zontroll]

Referral Link: Amazon has this book for $12 more than bn
Even Amazon's used book marketplace is more expensive than bn.

Re:$12 more at amazon

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm amazed that you even think people will click on your referral link, after you clearly state that the book costs significantly more.

Re:$12 more at amazon

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one welcome zontroll's prompt Amazon links.

If he says a book will cost more at *zon, it saves me the effort to go there and look it up.

If he says it'll cost less, I appreciate that too, and wouldn't mind buying through his link in exchange for the time he saved me. And yes, I trust him because if he lied I'd see a zillion ACs correct him.

Details about what's different since 1st edition?

[dbrower]

I'd like to have some more data about the new information - what has changed, and why. Anybody know?

-dB

Good Book!

[SEGV]

I've mostly read this and Tufte's two other books, which a colleague kindly brought into work. They are all three a joy to read or just look at.

Re:Good Book!

[Anonymous Coward]

Your post might have been a tad more interesting if you'd bothered to mention the titles of the other two books. Yes, I'm sure I could Google the info but I could have done that without your post. As it stands, your post serves up one trivial bit of knowledge - that Tufte has written exactly two other books.

Re:Good Book!

[Stephen]

The other two books are called Envisioning Information and Visual Explanations. I recommend all three of them, although there is some overlap.

Have a look at Tufte's sculptures too.

Re:Good Book!

[Walter Wart]

I would have to add a couple comments here. "Good Book" is a good start, but "Why this is a good book" is useful, too.

Consider a possibly significant piece of information. I am fortunate enough to live in Portland, Oregon, the home of Powell's bookstore. The technical bookstore alone is a cavern covering most of a city block. The main store is three stories tall and does cover a whole block. There are always lots of new copies of Tufte's stuff on the shelves. I have almost never seen a used copy. People buy his work and hang on to it. Anyhow....

TVDoQI, Visual Explanations, and Enivisioning Information are a lot more than how to draw useful graphs. They explain, in some detail, how to communicate potentially complex information succinctly, elegantly and understandably. They also provide excellent heuristics for detecting bad graphical representations and ways of determining when someone is trying to lie to you with pictures. The only books which come close are Schopenhauer's The Art of Controversy for argument and How to Lie With Statistics for statistical skullduggery.

Tufte uses many different styles and examples and arranges them in ways which expand the reader's view of what can be shown as well as how to do it.

I just got a copy of The Cognitive Style of Powerpoint and am very impressed. He lays out very clearly its inherent and possibly insoluble problems vis a vis information density, the abomination that is the content wizard and the colorful graphing tools which hide more than they show. He's on slightly less solid ground with the cognitive style and "straitjacket" comments; they are generally true but not necessarily so.

He's got a website where you can buy his books, monographs, posters, graph paper, and even a quarter million dollar sculpture.

Take One Of Tufte's Courses

[DoctorMabuse]

As a consultant, I have to be very careful when choosing seminars/courses to attend. One, because they cost money, and two, because I don't get to bill that day(s), which even costs me more money.

I will never regret attending Tufte's course. I learned more about web design, the evils of Power Point (see his article in a recent Wired) and other topics related to display of information, than I ever imagined possible. His course isn't for academics. If you ever give briefings where you have to display pie charts or bar graphs, you could learn things from his course. Highly recommended.

Re:Take One Of Tufte's Courses

[CGP314]

The problem isn't with power point, the problem is that is lowers the barrier for an incompetent speaker to put together a speech - a good speaker, however can use power point to do amazing things. IE, just yesterday I was at an hour long presentation where a librarian told us how to use the library. It's was just slide after slide of URLs and paragraphs she read from the screen. On the other hand, a few years ago, I saw an excellent speaker use power point to give a talk on the basics of string theory. He used power point well - as a way of organizing his diagrams and animations.

Re:Take One Of Tufte's Courses

[donpardo]

Tufte makes this point in his presentations. He thinks it's fine for use as a slide projector, but terrible for building the images.

The classic example: Gettysburg

Re:Take One Of Tufte's Courses

[bitmason]

The other big issue with Powerpoint presentations is that they're trying to be too many things all at once. They're a presentation (duh) but they also end up being speaker notes, background information, reference material -- and that's before chart-junk and chart-graphics. Good presentation slides usually have some well chosen graphics and just enough text to structure. But in a typical business setting that assumes that the presenter is familiar enough with the material that he doesn't need to read it off the slide and that more detailed data and such are available in other ways to the audience than in the presentation.

Now, for your typical status report, it may well make sense to just stuff everything in a Powerpoint presentation. But this philosophy of putting everything on the page then ends up carrying over to other types of presentations that would be far better if strcutured differently (such as with a presentation and a separate handout).

Re:99 per cent

[MysticGlyph]

..it's 97.3% and credit should be givin to Steven Wright, it's a classic bit.

A Vey Useful Book

[TechyImmigrant]

I've used this book for years as my first point of reference when I have 'quantitive information' to display.

Every engineer should have one to hand to keep themselves safe from the brain warping effects of powerpoint.

Re:A Vey Useful Book

[Enonu]

What do you mean?!?!? Just like, uh, get a few sentances, put bullets next to them and *BAM*, you have a presentation for everybody. Just add some swirlin graphics and some sound, and the information really stands out. To boot, since you can spend less than a minute per slide, make like a 100 of them, and then, here's the kicker, make your audience print the whole damn thing! That way they don't have to take notes or think even.

Re:A Vey Useful Book

[alansz]

I'll second this. It is also required reading for experimental psychologists and other social scientists who analyze and present quantitative data.

Re:A Vey Useful Book

[ChaosDiscord]

Just like, uh, get a few sentances, put bullets next to them and *BAM*, you have a presentation for everybody. Just add some swirlin graphics and some sound, and the information really stands out. To boot, since you can spend less than a minute per slide, make like a 100 of them, and then, here's the kicker, make your audience print the whole damn thing! That way they don't have to take notes or think even.

An excellent summary. I recently read Tufte's book The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint (His online article, "PowerPoint is Evil" summarizes the book quite well). It's a good book and forced me to rethink how I do presentations. As Tufte says, PowerPoint is a fine slideshow program, but lining up your thoughts into slide after slide of bullet points leads to uninspired, hard to understand talks.

While discussing it with a coworker, he pointed out something Tufte only briefly touches on. Sure, the rampant abuse of PowerPoint makes life less pleasant for the audience. But that's not why PowerPoint caught on. PowerPoint became popular because it makes life easy for the presenter. When it's an hour before you're to present a talk it's not the time to start assembling a handout of reference information. No, you need something fast, something acceptable. Slide after slide of bullet points might be crap, but it's crap that is accepted as the standard. Doing it the right way takes more time.

Re:Details about what's different since 1st editio

[zontroll]

info from the author and publisher on what's different since the 1st edition is here.

Re:for something so quantized

[Anonymous Coward]

Quantized is not synonomous with brief.

Rating: 10?

[Anonymous Coward]

For a book entitled Visual Display of Quantitative Information, shouldn't the rating look more like:

Rating: 1 [**********] 10

Re:Rating: 10?

[Angry Toad]

Rating: 1 [**********] 10

I'm quite certain the book would have something to say about such an egregious waste of space to communicate the number "10".

Re:Rating: 10?

[Anonymous Coward]

I imagine there would be a lovely histogram comparing the number of wasteful representations across similar Slashdot AC postings.

Re:Rating: 10?

[Black Perl]

I'm quite certain the book would have something to say about such an egregious waste of space to communicate the number "10".

Ah, but there's a lot more than just the number 10 being represented. Ten what? Percent?

If you were to visually display that quantitative information, you'd need both a sense of scale and of precision. The scale would be the 1-to-10 (although on Slashdot reviews I think the scale is 8-to-10), and the precision (is it 10.0 or 10) which the whole asterisks the original poster used were fine. I think if you communicated in another way all that his simple graphic represented, you'd be the one wasting space.

Re:Rating: 10?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah. I see.

1
2
3
4
5
6
7 .........
8 ............
9 ..............
10 ..*.........

and on the second slide, you'd say
* = this book
. = other books reviewed here

The Columbia Team could have used this book

[twiddlingbits]

The author was interviewed by the CAIB. He stated a lot of the information presented that lead the NASA managers to the "we can't do anything" approach was poorly designed and did NOT get information across, or was slanted. He pointed out several PowerPoint slides that had 10-12 errors on them that led to incorrect interpretations by the audience. This is a GREAT book, and should be on every engineer's shelf if they present data to an audience (including peers). MBA's study some of this in their classes, but (most) Engineers and Scientists and Doctors don't. It's a shame when you have great information that is hidden by poor presentation.

Bad statistical graphics are everywhere

[rev063]

Despite this classic book being available for 20 years, there are still plenty of examples of bad statistical graphics to be found in the mainstream media. Here's just one example from the Seattle Times this year, along with a "non-lying" revision of the chart, but you can find plenty by flipping through just about any regional newspaper. Or any edition of USA Today. The NYT usually has good charts, though.

I thoroughly recommend this book to anyone who has to produce charts for their job.

Re:Bad statistical graphics are everywhere

[B'Trey]

The "corrected" chart is worse than the original. The author says "I re-did the chart in Excel, and you can see that a real chart tells a very different picture: actually, it's the middle classes that carry the greatest share of the tax burden, however you look at it."

Balderdash and poppycock. Why are you splitting the top 5% into two groups? Why, to make their contributions look smaller! That's a deliberate deception. How about if you combined the top 2-5% with the top 1% and show the top 5% as one group? The top 5% pays 56.1% of all income taxes. The middle class and the lower class combined pay 43.9% So tell me again who pays "...the greates share?" The rant is titled "Damn Lies." It doesn't bother to inform you that it's the ranter who's telling them.

(And for what it's worth, a bar chart was a poor choice for this graph. A pie chart would be preferred.)

Re:Bad statistical graphics are everywhere

[extra88]

Why are you splitting the top 5% into two groups? Why, to make their contributions look smaller!

Because that's how the original Seattle Times graphs broke them down. And given how large a part of the federal budget is devoted to Social Security and Medicare, it's ridiculous to look only at income tax and not at all federal taxes. The total for all federal taxes for the top 5% is 41.2% of all taxes paid vs. the 44.6% paid by the "middle class" WHICH WERE ENTIRELY OMITTED from the Seattle Times graph.

(And for what it's worth, a bar chart was a poor choice for this graph. A pie chart would be preferred.)

While the fact that they're taking 100% of something and splitting it up implies a pie graph would be favorable, it's easier for people to see differences when it's a bar graph vs. a pie graph.

Re:Bad statistical graphics are everywhere

[tgibbs]

there are still plenty of examples of bad statistical graphics to be found in the mainstream media. Here's just one example from the Seattle Times this year

Actually, when talking about distribution of the tax burden among income classes, it is perfectly reasonable to compare the "top 5%" to the "top 1%" as in the Seattle Times graph, even though the latter is a subset of the former. The complainant seems to be confusing the bar graph with a pie chart, where the slices have to be exclusive and the percentages have to add up to 100%.

Re:Bad statistical graphics are everywhere

[YU Nicks NE Way]

No, in fact, the original PI article grouped the top twentieth together. The GP is correct: the "improved" graph is far more deceptive than the original, unless you believe that people between the 95th and 99th percentile of income are "middle class".

It is, perhaps, ironic that these graphs are begin used in a discussion related to Tufte, though: his core thesis is that an effective graphic reduces the amount of ink by displaying the right data about the right relationship. In this case, I can think of two far better graphs to show: marginal tax burden, whether or not corrected for "Minimum living wage", or marginal effect on economy size due a change in the income tax rate as a function of income. The fact that this graphic does neither of these indicates that the graphic is questionable -- not surprising, since, in this case, it is intended to manipulate, not inform.

Re:Bad statistical graphics are everywhere

[rev063]

As the author of the corrected graphic, I feel I ought to make a rebuttal here.

Why are you splitting the top 5% into two groups?

Because that's how the original article (sadly no longer available) divided society. There were four groups: lower classes (bottom 60% quantiles) middle classes (not mentioned), upper classes (above 5%) and super-rich (above 1%). Then a graph compared income taxes paid by each. The top two groups were compared IN THE CONTEXT OF the bottom group, but the top two groups overlapped each other! This is deception. The division of quantiles into classes is indeed arbitrary, but it was the division used by the original article).

And for what it's worth, a bar chart was a poor choice for this graph. A pie chart would be preferred.

Balderdash and poppycock in the extreme! There are many studies which show that pie charts are a poor visual representation of a division of a whole. (Says Tufte in his book: "This point [regarding pie charts] is made decisively in Jaques Bertin, Graphics and Graphic information processing (1981). Bertin describes multiple pie charts as "completely useless".) The basic problem is that the human brain has difficulty comparing areas of wedge-shaped objects. If you want to compare numbers use a bar chart.

Since the entire purpose of the article was to compare how different social groups contributed to the tax pool, it makes sense to compare ratios (group A contributed twice as much as group B, for example). A bar chart is ideal for this purpose (as is a simple table with calculated ratios, in fact, but we're discussing charts here). But it doesn't make sense to compare the ratios of A+B with C, with the ratio of B with C. That's plain misleading.

And, for the record, IAAS (I am a statistician).

Re:Bad statistical graphics are everywhere

[jovlinger]

I would like to see a cummulative %paid vs %population graph, like a lorenz curve.

I would show you with ascii-art, but that was too lame for slashdot, apparently.

Re:Bad statistical graphics are everywhere

[B'Trey]

Because that's how the original article (sadly no longer available) divided society.

Funny, I have it up in another tab right now. I followed your link to the Seattle Times, created a bogus login, and accessed the article in the archives. It does not have the graphic in the archives article, but your page links to that.

Nowhere in the article does it divide society up as you claim. I only find one mention of different percentiles:

Seattle Times Quote: The top 5 percent of the nation's taxpayers paid 41 percent of all federal taxes, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation. But that same group paid from 56 to 59 percent of all income taxes.

There were four groups: lower classes (bottom 60% quantiles) middle classes (not mentioned), upper classes (above 5%) and super-rich (above 1%). Then a graph compared income taxes paid by each. The top two groups were compared IN THE CONTEXT OF the bottom group, but the top two groups overlapped each other! This is deception.

This is simply false. The article never mentions three or four groups. I posted the only mention of percentages in a quote above. Pull it up and look. (If you dispute that, let me know and I'll paste the entire text of the article in a comment and copyright laws be damned.) The point of the graphic is not to compare the bottom 60% to the top 5% to the top 1%, nor is it to show the distribution of the tax burden across the entire spectrum of the population. The point of the graph is to compare each of the top 5% and top 1% with the bottom 60%. The fact that the top 5% and top 1% overlap is intentional. No attempt is made to have the numbers add up to 100%. THAT ISN'T THE POINT OF THE GRAPH. In effect, the graph says "The top 5% pays much more that the bottom 60%, and even if you restrict it to the top 1% they still pay more!" The point is to show the disparity, and the graph does that admirably.

Bertin's point regarding multiple pie charts is correct. Also, pie charts with more than four wedges are difficult to comprehend. That doesn't mean pie charts are useless. One would have worked fine for your "corrected" graph. (It would have been a poor choice for the original graph, however, because the original graph was not intended to show a division totaling 100%.)

But it doesn't make sense to compare the ratios of A+B with C, with the ratio of B with C. That's plain misleading.

It makes perfect sense to compare the top 5% with the bottom 60%, then to compare the top 1% with the bottom 60%. That's the purpose of the graph.

And, for the record, IAAS (I am a statistician).

God but I hope this is a lie. If not, please let me know where you earned your degree so I can make sure my kids don't go there.

Re:Bad statistical graphics are everywhere

[justins]

No attempt is made to have the numbers add up to 100%. THAT ISN'T THE POINT OF THE GRAPH.

I think the point remains, having the graph add up to 100% would be the most clear. I agree with your original assertion that a pie chart would have been best. There are a few things that the graph needs to convey here, and a pie chart could probably do that really well.

In effect, the graph says "The top 5% pays much more that the bottom 60%, and even if you restrict it to the top 1% they still pay more!" The point is to show the disparity, and the graph does that admirably.

That's the neat thing about a pie chart, you could show the top five percentiles as slices next to one another (they're big enough), and serve that purpose while keeping the total value represented by the chart at 100%. With those slices next to one another you sort of show the 5% and 1% values without duplication.

If you know what I mean. :)

Worth the read

[Anonymous Coward]

In a nutshell, it's KISS for charts. Get rid of the cruft and let the data speak for itself.

This book also made me realize consciously many of the features that make me like the graphs/maps/charts that I appreciate. When done right, you can pack a lot of information into a small presentation area.

Also see Tufte's page or two in the Challenger Accident Investigation Board Report on PowerPoint use in NASA.

Overheard recently: "I go to customer sites. They show me their Powerpoint presentation. I show them my Powerpoint presentation. And we think we've communicated."

Re:Worth the read

[HarveyBirdman]

Overheard recently: "I go to customer sites. They show me their Powerpoint presentation. I show them my Powerpoint presentation. And we think we've communicated."

Well that's the fault of "they" and "we", not Powerpoint. People blaming the tool, again.

Re:Worth the read

[Anonymous Coward]

Not so much blaming the tool, but making a comment about the expectations of most of the community with regard to presentations. Style is more appreciated than substance, and besides, style is more easy to generate, so stylish presentations with little substance are ubiquitous.

And, by the way, Powerpoint is ubiquitous as well. I've seen one non-Powerpoint presentation in the last year or two of presentations I've seen (a guy using foils; but he was an academic).

I suppose the guy should be more particular in his language, but on the other hand when I say "Television is worthless" I'm generally understood to mean "The content presented on the majority of television channels is worthless to me", not "The NTSC standard is worthless".

Re:Worth the read

[sbszine]

It's the wrong tool for the job, in my opinion. Powerpoint (or MS) can be partially blamed because it's marketed as a communication package, but is unsuited for a lot (perhaps most) of the things that organisations need such a package to be able to do. If you have time, have a read of this for a more coherent argument against PPT as a tool.

Re:Worth the read

[HarveyBirdman]

I find it really useful in my engineering job as a place to bundle up all the data on a design for data releases, design presentations, or just to hand to anyone new who needs to get up to speed on the project. I can put schematics, assembly drawings, block diagrams, interface control tables and whatever all into one handy package. They also convert to PDF well.

Re:Worth the read

[sbszine]

In that case, I'd say you're going against the PPT grain. Usually the PPT stuff I encounter consists of bullet points, clip art, and cheesy transitions. You're a black sheep, twisting PPT into something useful and unusual.

Non Visual display of Statistical information...

[MosesJones]

That would be interesting, whale sounds, bird calls, waves...

All included in the new "Statistical information reports to relax by", also available as ringtones for your polyphonic mobile phone. Classics such as the "2000 census" , "Tea sales in North Dakota" and the timeless "Distribution of Toaster ownership by educational group", this offer is only available direct and will not be seen in any shops. Only $19.95, P&P extra, add 6% sales tax for residents in CA.

While we're on the subject...

[chmod_localhost]

I have recently converted to the Linux way of doing things, after being fed up with M$ for too long.

In my department, we use proprietary software for all of our data reporting. I would like to use an open source program instead, but since I'm new to Linux, I'm not sure what's out there.

I'm hoping the slashdot community can help me on this one- what are some good plotting programs that run on Linux?

Re:While we're on the subject...

[larry bagina]

gnuplot (which isn't GNU) kicks the shit out of every proprietary package I've ever seen.

Re:While we're on the subject...

[dylan.ucd]

one word: ploticus

i use it here

Re:While we're on the subject...

[funkbrain]

The particle physics community largely uses root. It is by no means perfect, but it does provide many useful statistical tools.

Tufte's website

[rev063]

Check out www.edwardtufte.com for more information about Tufte's work. The story of how he had to publish his own books to get them looking exactly how he wanted (important when your thesis is about ideal visual display!) is very interesting. The "Ask E.T." section is also well worth a read.

Re:Tufte's website

[Anne_Nonymous]

And the elegantly functional design of his website could be a lesson to the designers of other *cough* busier sites.

Re:Tufte's website

[autophile]

The story of how he had to publish his own books to get them looking exactly how he wanted...

...and apparently he needs to work on his web pages more to get them looking exactly how he wants. Some excerpts:

my Ph.D. in Po itical Science

Not to be immo est, but

and forever knowledge, i.e. pri ciples about Information Design

I wore a doctor's white coa , so I strolled all around

One wonders what tool was used to have such a specific error -- missing letters.

--Rob

Re:Tufte's website

[willutah]

It was probably an OCR error, i.e. scanned in from paper.

Re:Details about what's different since 1st editio

[donpardo]

"This is the second edition of The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. Recently published, this new edition provides excellent color reproductions of the many graphics of William Playfair, adds color to other images, and includes all the changes and corrections accumulated during 17 printings of the first edition."

From his site.

Filelight

[Makarakalax]

I've written a small program for KDE that exhibits what I feel is a fairly novel method for representating hierarchical data graphically.

Currently it only shows information related to your filesystem, but with the next version it will begin accepting any kind of hierarchical data piped from the cli, via a text file, etc. (method of input as yet unfinalised).

If anyone's interested, here's a screenshot, and here's the homepage

I apologise for the plug; usually I'm quite good and wait for at least on-topic opportunities! I'm sure I'll still get the usual ac death threats etc. nothertheless I hope to have interested some people.

Re:Filelight

[Anonymous Coward]

Anonymous Coward here (I've never signed up for an account and I never will). :)

I love that, it's quite awesome. And frankly, I think it's perfectly on topic. Now, if only you could make each pie section clickable so you could do all sorts of interesting things, like create sub-pie charts, or explore those directories.

Re:Filelight

[Makarakalax]

Currently, clicking a segment "recenters" the view on that segment, you can also use the segment context menu to open Konsole or Konqi at that location, or if it's a file, by mimetype.

Re:Filelight

[vcohen]

VERY cool -- kudos!

Re:Filelight

[Anonymous Coward]

That looks great - I'll try it in a minute! Thank you!

Tels

Re:Filelight

[pclminion]

That's really awesome. Would it be very hard to alter it to build and run under KDE 2? I don't want to download the entire thing just to run a single app. Why do toolkit designers always insist on sprinkling a thousand new APIs that break backward compatibility into every major release, forcing me to download and compile hundreds of MEGABYTES of stuff just to run a single application If you can just give me a hint what might have to be modified, I'll do my own "backport."

I apologise for the plug; usually I'm quite good and wait for at least on-topic opportunities! I'm sure I'll still get the usual ac death threats etc. nothertheless I hope to have interested some people.

Isn't it funny how people react that way... The software is FREE, dammit, it isn't like you're making a profit because you plugged it!

Re:Filelight

[Makarakalax]

KDE 2 eh? Well Kde 3 and 2 are fairly source compatable to my knowledge so I imagine the problems would be with Qt. I'm not sure how much exactly. If you can compromise the configure script so that it doesn't suspect you haven't got Qt 3.1, you can try to compile it. To be honest the configure script is hardly necessary, it's a generic KDE one and if you can somehow generate the makefiles without it then you'll be fine. Perhaps just cut out mose of the beginning of it. I dunno how automake and friends work very well so I don't know what exactly to suggest.

http://doc.trolltech.com/3.0/porting.html

that link describes the changes from 2 to 3, I looked through it. I think Filelight should be mostly ok.

If you do try, do contact me, if it looks hopeful I'll lend a hand.

Re:Filelight

[cpudney]

G'day,

Very nice.

I've seen similar displays called Radial, Space-Filling (RSF) visualizations.

A paper was presented at InfoVis2002 on InterRings (PDF) that might be of interest.

Regards,
Chris.

Re:Filelight

[babbage]

Congratulations, you've reimplemented IconFactory's iPulse. Quoting the blurb about the software, as run on both Apple & IF's site:

About iPulse

Using its concise and visually pleasing graphical user interface, iPulse displays a multitude of information on the desktop or in the dock. The entire UI is completely configurable so you can turn off gauges you don't want, leaving only what you are interested in for easy viewing.

Rated Four Mice by MacWorld Magazine, May, 2003.

iPulse's Gauges:
- CPU activity (single and dual)
- System load over time
- Network activity (packets in & out)
- Memory activity and usage
- Battery & wireless signal strength
- Network & disk peak activity indicators
- Disk usage
- Current time and date

It's Mac only shareware, but it's it's neat software, and I've been hoping for similar (but preferably open sourced) software for other platforms. Glad to see someone is working on it :-)

Re:Filelight

[Makarakalax]

I saw iPulse after I'd worked on Filelight. It's not really entirely similar to what I've done. Frankly it's probably better because it displays so much different information in a compact form. My tool is far more specific.

I hope Apple's Keynote dev team reads this.

[Anonymous Coward]

PowerPoint is Evil. Keynote has better Karma but still has a way to go. It seems as though Keynote purposely leaves out much of the chartjunk the Tufte is against.

Apple should hire Tufte as a consult for Keynote 2.0. Just like we got the Ken Burns Effect for iMovie, Keynote could use the Tufte Effect.

Coffee Table Book for PowerPoint Jockies

[Anonymous Coward]

I got this book for Xmas a few years back and was a bit disappointed -- it is basically an "old school" version of Jakob Nielsen. The book was pretty and a somewhat interesting read with (as everyone always mentions) good historical examples, but expensive and ultimately not incredibly insightful. ET seems to have carved a good niche for himself making PowerPoint jockies feel part of a broader cultural tradition.

Sorry to be so negative.

Re:Coffee Table Book for PowerPoint Jockies

[mrkh]

I have to agree with you. Certainly it's worth a read, and I'm sure most people will gain something from it, but it's really an art book with a few sensible tips in, rather than a deeply thought out guide to presenting information. The content comes down to 'avoid grids, reduce clutter, remove all un-necessary data' - most of the book is historical info or pictures. Definitely read before you buy it.

Re:Coffee Table Book for PowerPoint Jockies

[ChaosDiscord]

I somehow doubt that a man who wrote the article "PowerPoint Is Evil," (itself a summary of his book The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint ) would be popular with "PowerPoint Jockies."

While Tufte is definately interested in usability, he's no Nielsen. Nielsen focuses on the usability of computer interfaces. Tufte isn't terribly interested in computer interfaces (although he does discuss them), he is more generally interested in making high quality displays of information. Take a look at the majority of charts and graphs with a critical eye and you'll see deception, errors, and generally a waste of space. Tufte wants to show that a chart or a graph can be a powerful visualization tool, but we squander it. We create charts that can be understood by a first grade student, but fail to enlighten anyone.

Relative quantities

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anybody know where I could find an index of relative quantities? For example, a graph that plots a smidge next to a bunch, whit a whack and a whole whack there for comparison.

A lota people would find it useful it a whole lota ways.

Re:Relative quantities

[rosbif]

You mean something like this - http://www.powersoften.com
or this
http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/research/projec ts/how -much-info/datapowers.html

Re:Details about what's different since 1st editio

[zontroll]

There's more info at his site than the blurb you copied and pasted. For example:

"This new second edition of The Visual Display of Quantitative Information has recently been translated into Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish. These seven editions are produced at the same elegant level of printing and design as the original English edition"

That's why I linked to it instead of copying and pasting a single blurb and making people miss additional information.

Napoleon map and ClickTracks

[Stephen]

Interesting that you should single out the map of Napoleon's retreat from Moscow. That graphic was the inspiration for our web log analysis program ClickTracks. Our CEO saw it and realised that what web log analysis needed was to show data in context, rather than in long lists. We have the poster of the Napoleon map on the wall of our office.

Link to Article

[Hell O'World]

Read the Tufte article here

Information Visualization Resources on the Web

[Adam_Trask]

FYI: some more resources

Oh Dear God...not Tufte.

[DohDamit]

The man is a blowhard. He spends most of his time in his lectures bragging about his book collection and oversimplifying real world scenarios so they fit into his diagrams.

His books are a study in design without content. Anyone who has any sense will find nothing of any value in his books that they haven't seen in a hundred places before.

The man lives off the hubris of managers everywhere.

That is the true display of his genius.

Re:Oh Dear God...not Tufte.

[cmfw]

I second that. Yesterday I took his course in DC and left after the first sesssion. As I was taking the metro back to the office, I noticed others who left with their books. The first hour was significant were he talk about the "grand principles of analytical design, but after that it was one plug or look at how mart I am after another. Interestingly enough I went home and read one of the books that was published in the 1990's and it was verbatim as to what he was saying in the lecture. You would think after 13 years he would have thought of something more insightful.

concerns about using charts

[drfireman]

I have a concern about the use of charts that parallels concerns about using statistics. Either, poorly done, can be misleading. But the real problem is in the illusion that ordinary, average people can be expected to make sense of either charts or statistics. I may present a graph or statistical test that really does demonstrate what I claim it does (within the limits of what's afforded by my data). It's still at some level irresponsible of me to present this to people who I know are not able to evaluate whether or not I've done things right. Although they may not be misled by my data, the mode of argumentation isn't the actual weight of evidence (which I know quite well they probably can't evaluate for even the most basic errors), but more the apparent weight of evidence. This is a potentially harmful way to go about conducting public debate.

I think Tufte's advice is well taken, but I don't see an obvious way around this problem. Doing things right seems of limited value if the real weight of your argument would be equally well captured with a simple "trust me." I'd feel better if there were ultimately some accounting, but there never seems to be.

Re:concerns about using charts

[nagora]

But the real problem is in the illusion that ordinary, average people can be expected to make sense of either charts or statistics.

They can but are usually too lazy to try, in which case nothing will help. See www.dilbert.com for details.

TWW

Great Theories-- but not for Everyone

[Speare]

I love Tufte's books-- have three of them on my shelf. They're very intricate and excellent. They're visceral studies in how you can achieve excellence.

But that's just the problem: they are over the top. Not everyone is an aesthete.

Most people would rather just type a few lines into a PowerPoint template and flash it onto an 800x600 screen, rather than hire a team of graphic artists to develop a diecut 1200dpi offset-print folder of reports which draw a visual metaphor between daVinci's visions and last quarter's sales in the Kansas region. And most of the time, audiences would rather skim than study, too.

I see Tufte as belonging somewhere between Knuth and Escher. If you consider his valid points and enjoy the energy he brings to the craft, great. But keep pragmatism in the process too: if it's good enough, ship it, and refine it for the next revision.

Re:Great Theories-- but not for Everyone

[dmeranda]

Good presentation of information IS being pragmatic. Too often people substitute the word "pragmatic" for the word "lazy".

Speaking of the PowerPoint generation, as a software developer who actually tries to study information presentation from the likes of Edward Tufte, Jakob Nielsen, and so forth I still get real frustrated when the PHB's dictate requirements with no insight at all. Often times colors choices are made just by picking the prettiest color amongst the 32-color palette available in the MS Word toolbar or something silly like that. I find that in the real world it's not that Tufte is not very pragmatic, its just that the people making the decisions have not even heard of Tufte.

Re:Great Theories-- but not for Everyone

[Linux Ate My Dog!]

Actually, you touch on what I consider a problem with Tufte and the computer domain. Many people always point to Tufte as the examples to follow into making clear displays and websites to display lost of data. But when you actually try to adapt anything he does, one quickly find out that most of his examples of visualizing repetitive data are predicating on using high-resoltuion output -- like paper. Not screen. You cannot show 40 T-shirts, or faces, or blocks depciting small differences in a dataset on a 72 or even 110 dpi screen, at the same time. Unless your screen is a poster. Just can't be done.

In fact, when actually specifically starts to give recommendations working on the screen, they are not so good, although I cannot find the link to such a recommendation that supports my opinion.

Re:Great Theories-- but not for Everyone

[ChaosDiscord]

But when you actually try to adapt anything he does, one quickly find out that most of his examples of visualizing repetitive data are predicating on using high-resoltuion output -- like paper.

True enough. Tufte discusses this a bit more in his book The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint . (It's summarized online in "PowerPoint is Evil".)

One of his points? Modern computer screens suck. The human eye is capable of distinguishing fairly high resolution data. He does have a bit of a fuzzy spot when thinking about modern computer displays. Fortunately there is still lots of need to make high quality displays of information on paper. And as he points out in PowerPoint, if the screen sucks, put it on a handout so people can appreciate the real thing.

Re:Great Theories-- but not for Everyone

[babbage]

He also gets into computer interface design in Visual Explanations. He cites the very low resolution of computer displays, using the interface from a Beethoven CD-ROM, and contrasts this against a guide he helped design for the National Gallery in Washington, DC.

Naturally Tufte prefers his own stuff, but with his museum system he makes the same point that he's hammering on about now with PowerPoint: he does the best he can with the software interface, but the key is to provide a good handout -- if you go to a kiosk and look up where a given exhibit is, you can print out a high quality map with both verbal & visual instructions guiding the visitor to her goal. The interface itself is just a "best approximation" of the information that, in his opinion, really works better on paper than a computer screen.

Not that I disagree in general -- there's no arguing the fact that even a cheap bubble jet or dot matrix printer has many times better resolution than even the highest end computer display systems (75 or 100 dpi for a monitor is typical; 300 dpi for a printer is no big deal) -- but it seems to me that Tufte is a bit too defeatist about all this. Paper may look better, but it's a hell of a lot less dynamic, and dynamism is the whole point of computer interfaces. Poor resolution or not, we need the best UI possible for our computer displays, and IMO people like, say, Jakob Nielsen seem to have more constructive criticism than Tufte with his "man, these things suck compared to paper" defeatism.

Still, his books are nice :-)

Re:Great Theories-- but not for Everyone

[ChaosDiscord]

...Tufte with his "man, these things suck compared to paper" defeatism.

Probably a fair assessment.

I was struck by the fact that his Anti-PowerPoint book didn't really discuss what you should do, it mostly harped on what not to do. After a bit it dawned on me what I should be doing (That is, the exact things my high-school public speaking teacher was saying), but the lack of any real direction on how to move forward was surprising. All the more surprising given that he is widely praised as an excellent speaker. He does come across as a bit defeatist. Fair enough. Still, his work is strong enough that it's a valuable read for everyone, and defeatist attitudes aside, much of what he says applies to computer screens as well.

How about a good summary of the CHANGES?

[dpbsmith]

I already own the 1983 edition (as well as copies of "Envisioning Information" and "Visual Explanations.")

So what I really need to know is just what has been added in the new edition and whether it's really worth shelling out $40 for.

"Some additional graphics, extra colour, and corrections" doesn't really tell me a whole lot. It does suggest that it's not much of an update and probably not a must-have if you have the older edition. Is that correct? Of course, if the "additional graphics" include any gems like the multidimensional map of Napoleon's army in Russia, it might easily be worth the $40 for those alone.

Re:Details about what's different since 1st editio

[McDulay]

As others have posted, several images are now printed in color and corrections already made in previous printings. I have the 17th printing from 1998, and I only notice the new color images. Nice to have, but I don't think the changes merit the "2nd edition" tag.

I'll second that.

[SuperKendall]

I am not a consultant (perminent employee), and spent my own money to go to a Tufte seminar. That was one of the best purchases I ever made, I felt I learned quite a bit from that and the things you learn are very applicable for design work of all kinds.

The only thing I disagree with Tufte on is the design of computer user interfaces. Here I think he has somehow gone astray and not correctly extrapolated his main themes into interface.

Pity about the title.

[rumblin'rabbit]

This book, and its predecessor "How to Lie with Statistics", have been described as "The Elements of Style" for graphics. But William Strunk Jr. would have been horrified by the title. Visual Display? What other kind of display is there? A better title would have been "Displaying Quantitative Information". Having said that, I greatly enjoyed the book, and learned much from the 1st edition. Anyone working with graphics should read it.

Good book, good seminar, but...

[DerProfi]

for the love of god Dr. Tufte please stop sending me junk mail trying to sign me up for more of the same! :-) My wife and I attended his seminar about 9 years ago and walked away with the books and a cool poster depicting Napoleon's losses in his 1812 Russian campaign. We have since moved about 3 times, yet Tufte's postcards continue to follow us and we receive one each approximately every other month.

Interestingly, and apropos to his current bashing of business graphics software, I approached Dr. Tufte afterwards and asked him if he had ever thought about teaming with a software firm. At the time I worked with a large consulting firm that had a decent software development group, and I told him that there was bound to be a market for a package that would help people create business graphics more within the paradigms discussed in his book (remember that this was pretty much the era of Harvard Graphics and Lotus 1-2-3 add-ons). He replied that he hadn't considered it but that it could be a good idea, so I passed him a business card and also and got his contact information to pass along to my boss.

Nothing ever happened, of course, but looking back I like to think that I did my part to try and prevent the nightmare that is PowerPoint XP.

Ideals versus reality

[deuterium]

This is another case of people espousing somewhat academic ideals because they're either idealistic or posturing. Much like the methods academics would suggest for general programming, a lot of the examples in this book assume a populace that has the ability to understand them. This isn't to say that we shouldn't know the principles behind information display, but those can be had in much simpler books, with more real world examples. Sure, it's cool that the Okinawa train schedule packs a ton of info into an efficient area, but it's also a daunting read for the uninitiated. People deal best with once piece of information at a time. It reminds me of web sites that use menus based on a 3d sphere of text, or interrelated sliders. It may make perfect sense to some people, but not to all. Truly, KISS.

While we're on the subject...To serve...

[Anonymous Coward]

For those who like doing things server-side.

JFreeChart is a good choice, and can output even in SVG.

And if you like Crystal Reports (TM) then Agata Report is nice.

click tracks

[jefu]

I suspect that the most your web designer got out of the books was a cool poster.

Your front page certainly does not show that the designer paid much attention to the ideas in the books. The animated gif from hell at the right side is seriously distracting to the viewer. I think a closer reading of Tufte would probably lead to the inference that this is exactly the kind of junky graphics that he dislikes the most.

The lack of clear navigation tools on the front page doesn't help, nor does the fact that there are at least three things the viewer might check to get to "products". That the page does not display well in Firebird (at least on my machine) is another problem.

Finally, the Flash demo offers lots of glitz but little real information.

Maybe you need to buy the new edition and reread it all - a bit more carefully this time.

concerns about using charts-"Expert" testimony.

[Anonymous Coward]

"I have a concern about the use of charts that parallels concerns about using statistics. Either, poorly done, can be misleading. But the real problem is in the illusion that ordinary, average people can be expected to make sense of either charts or statistics."

And how is your concern, any different for other kinds of presentation? An educated audience is of importance for all forms of communication, not just the graphical. Your awful close to condencending.

"I may present a graph or statistical test that really does demonstrate what I claim it does (within the limits of what's afforded by my data). It's still at some level irresponsible of me to present this to people who I know are not able to evaluate whether or not I've done things right."

And how is the above different when applied to any other kind of information that the audience isn't an expert in?

"Although they may not be misled by my data, the mode of argumentation isn't the actual weight of evidence (which I know quite well they probably can't evaluate for even the most basic errors), but more the apparent weight of evidence. This is a potentially harmful way to go about conducting public debate."

If they're not misled by your data, then it stands to reason that they are indeed capable of evaluating your data regardless of your doubts.

"I think Tufte's advice is well taken, but I don't see an obvious way around this problem. Doing things right seems of limited value if the real weight of your argument would be equally well captured with a simple "trust me." I'd feel better if there were ultimately some accounting, but there never seems to be."

If your argument can best be summed up as "trust me" then you haven't been doing a very good job of getting your "point" across.

That's were the book comes in. Your goal is to get information from point A to point B. It shows you some of the ways you can do that, while avoiding some of the pitfalls in doing so. This is hard, and a lazy "trust me" will not cut it, if you have any kind of standards. Your audience may not be experts when you started, but when your done, they will be that much closer to it.

I want purdi pictures

[NanoGator]

"Part two begins by introducing some terminology and theory for describing graphics. The principle "Above all else show the data" is formalised as maximization of the data-ink ratio, and illustrated with some "before and after" examples of erasure of redundant or non-data-ink. Tufte excoriates various kinds of "chartjunk": moire vibration (the disconcerting effect caused by repeating patterns), the overuse of grids, and the "ducks" created when the design takes precedence over everything else."

All those words. Man, I can't wait until Slashdot provides IMG support. :P

Re:I want purdi pictures

[Bullet-Dodger]

All those words. Man, I can't wait until Slashdot provides IMG support. :P

...but please lord, not in the comments.

Do the changes make it worth buying?

[Phronesis]

I don't get any sense from the review whether the changes make it worth buying the new edition if I already own (and have committed to memory) the first edition.

Wow...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is an absolutely worthless review. Yes, it's a classic. No information on the new edition. Not to mention the review is what, two years late? What's wrong with you, Slashdot?

Yeah, but $40?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems a little steep given the content as described by the reviewer and being less than 200 pages..

Warning

[rnd()]

There was a story on this book in Slashdot a few years ago, and I ended up deciding to purchase the book.

It's decent material, and it's all accurate, but it's nothing revolutionary.

Generally, when the media publishes a misleading chart or graph it's done intentionally, and anyone of moderate intelligence realizes that when viewing the chart or graph.

The book is like Strunk and White for people who display quantitative information.

Strunk and White is not useful for most people raised on standard English grammar, and is quite frankly annoyingly parochial. Tufte's books strike me similarly. For instance, just as Strunk and White would likely find authors like Jack Kerouak or Junot Diaz abhorrent, Tufte would find Wired magazine abhorrent for all its visual excess and non-information-conveying design.

I haven't seen the latest edition, but I recommend browsing through this one at the book store before spending money on it.

Advertisement at bottom

[makkverk]

The best part of this article (titled "PowerPoint Is Evil") is the advertisement at the bottom which sells "Hot Powerpoint Templates".

coincidental (?) arrival of ad for class

[Tex Bravado]

Today I received a paper-mail ad for a class by Tufte on "Presenting Data and Information".
I believe his book is well regarded, but wonder what prompted this review at this time :-)

Not as silly as it sounds (so to speak)

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Non Visual display of Statistical information...

That would be interesting, whale sounds, bird calls, waves...

That's not as silly as it sounds. The ears, for instance (along with the processing behind them) are VERY good at finding one-dimensional patterns in time series, just as the eye is good at finding patterns in 2-D. Ears also have several other data-analysis tricks available, related to active and passive echolocation along with sonic direction-finding.

A great recent example was the sound of the big bang rendering of recent astrophysical findings. Both the time-series analysis and the passive echolocation features of the auditory system give you a "feel" for aspects of the data presented.

Don't bother, if you actually like to read+think

[Anonymous Coward]

I too am a consultant (time is valuable, must be selective, yaddayadda), and I was deeply disappointed in the one-day Tufte "seminar" I attended a few years back. He simply repeated the highlights of his books--which I'd already read, thanks--and showed the very same examples. This was really bizarre since all three books were included in the (steep) seminar price.

He didn't talk at all about more recent work with digital media, which I'd thought was the point of the seminar. For what it's worth, he also seemed like kind of a jerk.

The whole event seemed geared toward people who needed an "executive summary" so they could just plop the book on a coffee table and fill out that expense report. My advice? Save some time and money--buy and study the books, but avoid the medicine show.

Re:Details about what's different since 1st editio

[Anonymous Coward]

Several of the original plates that were b/w are now in color, and there are a few more examples (I think). The changes from the first edition are quite modest. I have the first ed, and got a complimentary copy of the second because I'm using it in a course I teach. While the second edition is nice to have, I would not have bought it for myself.

Re:Details about what's different since 1st editio

[Anonymous Coward]

I that case, do you want to donate your first edition to a worthy cause? I love ET's books - but unfortunately cannot afford them *sob*
visit: HyDeSign - and you'll see they are all on my wish list

Re:Don't bother, if you actually like to read+thin

[babbage]

<aol />

I attended one of his seminars in the spring, based on how much I liked the books when I picked them up a few years ago, and it felt like a complete retread of the same material that I'd already read -- parts of which I've read several times, for that matter.

The whole seminar was just waving around his books with a "gee, aren't these just wonderful" wave of self-awe, with an entertaining -- but if you've read the books, massively redundant -- overview of the themes in the books.

There was a sliver of new material, where he ripped on PowerPoint and, specifically, a presentation that Boeing engineers made about the foam debris damage before the Columbia dister earlier this year. This was interesting, and this material ended up being fleshed out into the Wired article & pamphlet that he's selling now (at the time, it sounded like it would end up being a chapter in a future fourth volume in his book series), but based on his other comments about computer interfaces, it wasn't hard to guess that this guy was going to hate the average PowerPoint presentation.

My one rebuttal to the "PowerPoint is evil" assertion is Damian Conway: the talks he gives to Perl Mongers are the best PowerPoint shows I've ever seen. But then, he does a lot of them, so he gets more chances to practice & polish... :-)

But anyway, yeah. Tufte gives a decent seminar, but if you've already read the books then you might not get a whole lot out of it that you haven't already absorbed two or three times already. The handouts are nice, but the big one is a set of books that you may have already owned (I ended up giving mine to a friend as a graduation present from art school). For the same money, you could just buy a few book sets and share them with your friends, and you'd all get the same information...