Finding the best information visualization suitable for your needs isnt easy. With hundreds of choices can distract you. Knowing whats bad and whats good can be something of a minefield. In this article, weve done the hard work for you.
Best information visualization
1. Information Visualization: Perception for Design (Interactive Technologies)
Description
Most designers know that yellow text presented against a blue background reads clearly and easily, but how many can explain why, and what really are the best ways to help others and ourselves clearly see key patterns in a bunch of data? When we use software, access a website, or view business or scientific graphics, our understanding is greatly enhanced or impeded by the way the information is presented.
This book explores the art and science of why we see objects the way we do. Based on the science of perception and vision, the author presents the key principles at work for a wide range of applications--resulting in visualization of improved clarity, utility, and persuasiveness. The book offers practical guidelines that can be applied by anyone: interaction designers, graphic designers of all kinds (including web designers), data miners, and financial analysts.
- Complete update of the recognized source in industry, research, and academic for applicable guidance on information visualizing
- Includes the latest research and state of the art information on multimedia presentation
- More than 160 explicit design guidelines based on vision science
- A new final chapter that explains the process of visual thinking and how visualizations help us to think about problems
- Packed with over 400 informative full color illustrations, which are key to understanding of the subject
2. The Truthful Art: Data, Charts, and Maps for Communication
Feature
Pearson New RidersDescription
No matter what your actual job title, you areor soon will bea data worker.
Every day, at work, home, and school, we are bombarded with vast amounts of free data collected and shared by everyone and everything from our co-workers to our calorie counters. In this highly anticipated follow-up toThe Functional ArtAlberto Cairos foundational guide to understanding information graphics and visualizationthe respected data visualization professor explains in clear terms how to work with data, discover the stories hidden within, and share those stories with the world in the form of charts, maps, and infographics.InThe Truthful Art, Cairo transforms elementary principles of data and scientific reasoning into tools that you can use in daily life to interpret data sets and extract stories from them.
The Truthful Artexplains:
The role infographics and data visualization play in our world
Basic principles of data and scientific reasoning that anyone can master
How to become a better critical thinker
Step-by-step processes that will help you evaluate any data visualization (including your own)
How to create and use effective charts, graphs, and data maps to explain data to any audience
The Truthful Artis also packed with inspirational and educational real-world examples of data visualizations from such leading publications asThe NewYork Times,The Wall Street Journal,Estado de So Paulo(Brazil),Berliner Morgenpost(Germany),and many more.
3. Information Visualization: An Introduction
Description
Information visualization is the act of gaining insight into data, and is carried out by virtually everyone. It is usually facilitated by turning data often a collection of numbers into images that allow much easier comprehension. Everyone benefits from information visualization, whether internet shopping, investigating fraud or indulging an interest in art. So no assumptions are made about specialist background knowledge in, for example, computer science, mathematics, programming or human cognition. Indeed, the book is directed at two main audiences. One comprises first year students of any discipline. The other comprises graduates again of any discipline who are taking a one- or two-year course of training to be visual and interaction designers. By focusing on the activity of design the pedagogical approach adopted by the book is based on the view that the best way to learn about the subject is to do it, to be creative: not to prepare for the ubiquitous examination paper. The content of the book, and the associated exercises, are typically used to support five creative design exercises, the final one being a group project mirroring the activity of a consultancy undertaking a design (not an implementation) for a client. Engagement with the material of this book can have a variety of outcomes. The composer of a school newsletter and the applicant for a multi-million investment should both be able to convey their message more effectively, and the curator of an exhibition will have new presentational techniques on their palette. For those students training to be visual/interaction designers the exercises have led to original and stimulating outcomes.4. Storytelling with Data: A Data Visualization Guide for Business Professionals
Description
Don't simply show your datatell a story with it!Storytelling is not an inherent skill, especially when it comes to data visualization, and the tools at our disposal don't make it any easier. This book demonstrates how to go beyond conventional tools to reach the root of your data, and how to use your data to create an engaging, informative, compelling story. Specifically, you'll learn how to:
- Understand the importance of context and audience
- Determine the appropriate type of graph for your situation
- Recognize and eliminate the clutter clouding your information
- Direct your audience's attention to the most important parts of your data
- Think like a designer and utilize concepts of design in data visualization
- Leverage the power of storytelling to help your message resonate with your audience
5. The Functional Art: An introduction to information graphics and visualization (Voices That Matter)
Feature
Pearson P T RDescription
Unlike any time before in our lives, we have access to vast amounts of free information. With the right tools, we can start to make sense of all this data to see patterns and trends that would otherwise be invisible to us. By transforming numbers into graphical shapes, we allow readers to understand the stories those numbers hide. In this practical introduction to understanding and using information graphics, youll learn how to use data visualizations as tools to see beyond lists of numbers and variables and achieve new insights into the complex world around us. Regardless of the kind of data youre working withbusiness, science, politics, sports, or even your own personal financesthis book will show you how to use statistical charts, maps, and explanation diagrams to spot the stories in the data and learn new things from it.Youll also get to peek into the creative process of some of the worlds most talented designers and visual journalists, including Cond Nast Travelers John Grimwade, National Geographic Magazines Fernando Baptista, The New York Times Steve Duenes, The Washington Posts Hannah Fairfield, Hans Rosling of the Gapminder Foundation, Stanfords Geoff McGhee, and European superstars Moritz Stefaner, Jan Willem Tulp, Stefanie Posavec, and Gregor Aisch. The book also includes a DVD-ROM containing over 90 minutes of video lessons that expand on core concepts explained within the book and includes even more inspirational information graphics from the worlds leading designers.
The first book to offer a broad, hands-on introduction to information graphics and visualization, The Functional Art reveals:
Why data visualization should be thought of as functional art rather than fine art
How to use color, type, and other graphic tools to make your information graphics more effective, not just better looking
The science of how our brains perceive and remember information
Best practices for creating interactive information graphics
A comprehensive look at the creative process behind successful information graphics
An extensive gallery of inspirational work from the worlds top designers and visual artists
On the DVD-ROM:
In this introductory video course on information graphics, Alberto Cairo goes into greater detail with even more visual examples of how to create effective information graphics that function as practical tools for aiding perception. Youll learn how to: incorporate basic design principles in your visualizations, create simple interfaces for interactive graphics, and choose the appropriate type of graphic forms for your data. Cairo also deconstructs successful information graphics from The New York Times and National Geographic magazine with sketches and images not shown in the book.
6. Envisioning Information
Feature
Graphics PrDescription
This book celebrates escapes from the flatlands of both paper and computer screen, showing superb displays of high-dimensional complex data. The most design-oriented of Edward Tufte's books, Envisioning Information shows maps, charts, scientific presentations, diagrams, computer interfaces, statistical graphics and tables, stereo photographs, guidebooks, courtroom exhibits, timetables, use of color, a pop-up, and many other wonderful displays of information. The book provides practical advice about how to explain complex material by visual means, with extraordinary examples to illustrate the fundamental principles of information displays. Topics include escaping flatland, color and information, micro/macro designs, layering and separation, small multiples, and narratives. Winner of 17 awards for design and content. 400 illustrations with exquisite 6- to 12-color printing throughout. Highest quality design and production.7. Design for Information: An Introduction to the Histories, Theories, and Best Practices Behind Effective Information Visualizations
Feature
Used Book in Good ConditionDescription
8. Visualization Analysis and Design (AK Peters Visualization Series)
Feature
AK PetersDescription
Learn How to Design Effective Visualization Systems
Visualization Analysis and Design provides a systematic, comprehensive framework for thinking about visualization in terms of principles and design choices. The book features a unified approach encompassing information visualization techniques for abstract data, scientific visualization techniques for spatial data, and visual analytics techniques for interweaving data transformation and analysis with interactive visual exploration. It emphasizes the careful validation of effectiveness and the consideration of function before form.
The book breaks down visualization design according to three questions: what data users need to see, why users need to carry out their tasks, and how the visual representations proposed can be constructed and manipulated. It walks readers through the use of space and color to visually encode data in a view, the trade-offs between changing a single view and using multiple linked views, and the ways to reduce the amount of data shown in each view. The book concludes with six case studies analyzed in detail with the full framework.
The book is suitable for a broad set of readers, from beginners to more experienced visualization designers. It does not assume any previous experience in programming, mathematics, humancomputer interaction, or graphic design and can be used in an introductory visualization course at the graduate or undergraduate level.
9. Information Visualization: Perception for Design (Interactive Technologies)
Feature
Used Book in Good ConditionDescription
Information Visualization is the major revision of a classic work on information visualization. This book explores the art and science of why we see objects the way we do. Based on the science of perception and vision, the author presents the key principles at work for a wide range of applications - resulting in visualization of improved clarity, utility, and persuasiveness. This is the first work to use the science of perception to help serious designers and analysts optimize understanding and perception of their data visualizations.
This unique and essential guide to human visual perception and related cognitive principles will enrich courses on information visualization and empower designers to see their way forward. Its updated review of empirical research and interface design examples will do much to accelerate innovation and adoption of information visualization. New to this edition are a new chapter on visual thinking, new sections on face perception and flow visualization, and a much-expanded chapter on color and color sequences.
This book will appeal to interaction designers; graphic designers of all kinds (including web designers); financial analysts; research scientists and engineers; data miners; and managers faced with information-intensive challenges.
*First work to use the science of perception to help serious designers and analysts optimize understanding and perception of their data visualizations.
* Major revision of this classic work, with a new chapter on visual thinking, new sections on face perception and flow visualization, and a much expanded chapter on color and color sequences.
*New to this edition is the full color treatment throughout, to better display over 400 illustrations.
10. Information Graphics
Feature
Used Book in Good ConditionDescription
Albert Einstein
Our everyday lives are filled with a massive flow of information that we must interpret in order to understand the world we live in. Considering this complex variety of data floating around us, sometimes the best or even only way to communicate is visually. This unique book presents a fascinating perspective on the subject, highlighting the work of the masters of the profession who have created a number of breakthroughs that have changed the way we communicate. Information Graphics has been conceived and designed not just for graphics professionals, but for anyone interested in the history and practice of communicating visually.
The in-depth introductory section, illustrated with over 60 images (each accompanied by an explanatory caption), features essays by Sandra Rendgen, Paolo Ciuccarelli, Richard Saul Wurman, and Simon Rogers; looking back all the way to primitive cave paintings as a means of communication, this introductory section gives readers an excellent overview of the subject. The second part of the book is entirely dedicated to contemporary works by todays most renowned professionals, presenting 200 graphics projects, with over 400 examples each with a fact sheet and an explanation of methods and objectives divided into chapters by the subjects Location, Time, Category, and Hierarchy.
- 200 projects and over 400 examples of contemporary information graphics from all over the worldranging from journalism to art, government, education, business and much more
- Four essays about the development of information graphics since its beginnings
- Exclusive poster (673 x 475 mm / 26.5 x 18.7 in) by Nigel Holmes,who during his 20 years as graphics director for TIME revolutionized the way the magazine used information graphics
