Beautiful Evidence
by Edward R. Tufte
|
List Price: Our Price: $30.00 You Save: $22.00 (42%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $16.96 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of Beautiful Evidence
Book Review: Still Has A Few Tricks Up His Sleeve...
Summary: 4 Stars
No one knows information design like Edward Tufte, Yale professor and author of several extraordinary books. The New York Times called him: "The Leonardo da Vinci of data," and that moniker may not be far from the truth.
In the wake of his three eminently successful and influential books on information design, the bar for "Beautiful Evidence" was high, indeed. As more than a few thoughtful reviewers have noted, "Beautiful Evidence" recapitulates some of those previous books' themes -- and so it may not seem quite so "eye-opening" as its predecessors. Fair enough -- but that's not to say this book doesn't reward the reader for time spent studying its pages. Tufte still has a few tricks up his sleeve...
Since this book has been out for a while, now, there are plenty of informative reviews to be found. So instead of adding to that analysis I'll pass along a few highlight notes from a Tufte seminar ("Presenting Data And Information") that was given not long after the book's debut --and incorporated lessons from all four texts.
"What I really do is teach people to think," he told me during a seminar break. He later continued, "The deep principles of information design have a universality... because they are rooted in principles of analytical thinking." And during the course of this seminar, he showed compelling examples of how good design can facilitate clear thinking and effective decision-making.'' Like most truly effective professors, Tufte engages his audience with vivid examples, humor and variety. (Effective teaching, he points out, is a good metaphor for great presentations.)
Tufte also has a flair for showmanship, as when his assistant dramatically dons her white curator's gloves to pass among the audience with an archival copy of Galileo's original text where "...on page 162..." is the only place the astronomer actually said that the earth revolves around the sun.'' But entertainment value aside, the seminar's content spoke for itself - no surprise for someone who has made his reputation stressing content uber alles.
To the assembled audience, Tufte offered these incisive principles about substance over style:
* "First do no harm (to the content)."
* "This is a content-driven business. The quality, the relevance and the integrity of the content is all."
* "Design cannot rescue failed content."
* "The best way to improve the quality of a presentation is to improve the content."
* "We must be incessantly on guard against those - the webmasters, the PowerPoint rangers, etc. - who would distort the integrity of content."
In an age of chart junk, information overload, and slapdash presentations...Professor Tufte offers a compelling prescription for better decisions, better design and better thinking. If you'd like to take a glimpse at what information design really can be, pick up "Beautiful Evidence" (or any one of his previous titles) -- or visit [...].
Book Review: A disappointment
Summary: 2 Stars
I finished tufte last night... what a disaster, or perhaps sunk with high expectations.
I'm a huge fan of dr. tufte's very influential writing on information visualization - as far as I know he's done the best work in the field. But this book - while simply physically and visually stunning - is a real disappointment.
In this work I read about 20% insight, 40% recycled material and preaching to what is probably the choir (this includes an overly repetitious chapter-long discussion of minard's lovely march to moscow graphic & his previously available power point piece), and 40% filler & drek. I don't find his comments on art, writing styles, baseball, and the like to be terribly compelling, and are certainly done better in many other works - and indeed, his thoughts on these ended up as being pretty grating and condescending, if not just wrong.
And that the book ends with several pages of photos (a few of really poor quality, I might add) his own outdoor artwork (which are of passable quality, but what the *bleep* does this have to do with evidence as defined at the front of the book?) only throws salt on the wounds.
This thing is maddeningly inconsistent. I wish I could simply dismiss the work, but it's full of beauty and joy as well as the bad. Sparklines are fun, but could be improved on. Words + images combined inline, some great stuff there. But while some of the really lovely things, like the translations of galileo, are wonderful and exciting to any science-loving person, they really are pretty pointless to the conversation at hand. He has gone straight down since his first major book - a 5+ star effort, the 2nd, 4.5-5 stars, 3rd, 3 stars, and this is about a 2 star one (2.5+ if you haven't read the others.)
If he'd stop believing his sycophants and stop taking himself so seriously in his quest to convince the reader that he's a high priest on a moral crusade it'd be wonderful. He really does try to convince the reader that this topic is of high moral concern - not just sometimes, but in general. I don't buy it.
And you shouldn't buy this if you haven't read his other works (although if you haven't I'll admit you'll probably like this, you just don't know any better ;-)). Read the staggeringly good "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information" or the wonderful "Envisioning Information". And if you must read this, soak up the good points, and try not to grind your teeth with the rest.
Book Review: Beautiful Figures, Shallow Words
Summary: 2 Stars
I was disappointed by "Beautiful Evidence". It seems to me to be a medium primarily for the reproduction of many gorgeous drawings, graphs, and tables done by others and the author, and an opportunity to make a rant on PowerPoint. Yes, many bad figures have been created and Dr. Tufte has made valid points and good suggestions, but they are not as densely presented as one would expect from his own words.
One of Dr. Tufte's main theses is a good figure has high information density, yet his text descriptions do not measure up to this standard. They are regularly repetitive or shallow. He even misses an opportunity to take his own advice when he presents the cancer rate data on p. 174 and then re-presents it as a new table on p. 176 in a better format. If he had used the concept he presented through the Bumps chart on p. 56, allowing lines for the cancer types to cross according to the values of the rates so each column is correctly ordered, relationships would have been even clearer.
Although tables can be dense with information, it is the very density that makes them difficult to interpret and understand. A beautiful, but very complex, figure created from all of complex table is not necessarily better at communication even if it is interesting or pleasing to look at. This is why so often figures are made from subsets of tables. The challenge to the presenter is to find what is important in the data and clearly present it.
I often felt attempts were made to find something auspicious to say about a well executed figure when nothing more than the "beauty is apparent" is needed.
Although I don't malign PowerPoint as Dr. Tufte does, I am not enamored of it either. However, faulting the program as he does seems to me akin to faulting a hammer for the bent over nails driven into wood. A better hammer might drive nails more easily, but it is the person wielding the hammer who has the primary controlling effect. Handing out a copy of "The Table of Casualties" to an audience would certainly put more information into their hands, but it will get little into their minds. It is up to the presenter to find a means of communicating the meaningful information to those who couldn't be bothered to study such data. Whether PowerPoint slides or Word reports are used, the presenter must consider the audience and how to get important details into their heads.
Spend time enjoying the figures and know good data presentation is hard.
Book Review: Beautiful, but ... read Visual Display first and know what you are buying
Summary: 4 Stars
This book is beautiful to look at. I think even the strongest critics would agree. For the record, I am glad I own this book.
The question regards practicality and truth in advertising. The author certainly does not deliberately mislead, but many readers of his books (or those who know his reputation), will be expecting a book focusing primarily on the display of data in graphics. Fully two thirds of the book addresses that topic. However, many readers will be surprised to find discussions of dance notation, Albrecht Durer, and Matisse. Even more surprising is the final chapter on sculpture featuring the work of the author. Some will find this bordering on the self-indulgent. Also, many of the visualizations, while stunning, are hand drawn. The discussion of Galileo in particular is striking and thought provoking. However, if you are looking for ways to improve your presentations of data using your PC or Mac, you must make a leap of faith that the insights that you gain will produce practical results by changing your thinking.
Having said that, I enjoyed many of the sections on art, design, and cartography regardless of their immediate applicability to my data visualization work as a data miner and statistics consultant. Perhaps it is because I am a lover of maps and art books. Is that what you expect this book's appeal to be? I found it rich in content, but a critic might describe it as a "coffee table book".
In regards the accurate display of data in graphical form, two discussions standout: the brilliant chapter on powerpoint (also found as The Cognitive Style of Power Point) and the chapter on "sparklines". According to an NY Times interview with the author "sparklines" gets as many google hits as Andy Warhol. Given its popularity on google, one might consider the following strategy: buy The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, 2nd edition, buy the paperback on powerpoint, google "sparklines", and visit the author's site. If you find the work fascinating, attend one of the author's lectures (I did), and/or get all the books.
Book Review: Stop the jihad! The world will not end with PowerPoint!
Summary: 2 Stars
I have long been a student of Tufte's, and the man has probably contributed more to the study of visual evidence than anyone.
Unfortunately, his continuing rant against a piece of software that was designed to help speakers less talented than he has become so overbearing as to overshadow his previous good works.
Dr. Tufte truly believes that one day, the wrong person will give the wrong PowerPoint presentation to the wrong audience, and the world will come to an end! He advocates having the World Police sieze all 300 million copies of PowerPoint around the globe and ban its use forever by internation treaty. If only the business world lived in the same fantasy universe as those blessed with a life in academia.
This book is mostly a collection of some very good material from his previous, stellar volumes, assembled as an excuse to get wider circulation for his diatribe on how PowerPoint is a totalitarian tool to make us all stupid. Tufte undoubtedly believes that inanimate objects such as guns and software can actually be evil themselves, without regard to the qualities of the users of such objects.
A great rebuttal to Tufte's ideas on where the evil lies can be found in the new book, 'And Your Point Is?' [available on Amazon], where one can find a great alternative rendering of the slide that Tufte claims killed the seven Columbia astronauts. At the end of the book, the author clearly demonstrates that using the same data, PowerPoint has the power to make overwhelmingly compelling arguments as long as the slide designer follows a few simple rules of visual design. As most of us in business will be stuck with PowerPoint for years to come, it's really better to learn how to use it effectively than to listen to another voice of unreason.
If you're considering this book, first check out his earlier three and take advantage of Tufte at his best.