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The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, by Edward R. Tufte.

This book sounds kind of boring, but it’s actually the bible of how to represent data visually.

Okay, that may still sound boring.

However, if you consider that it’s hard to actually know something well without looking at the data, and that we are often far better at seeing data visually then we are at digesting it in tables, you’ll understand it may be helpful to understand when a visual display of data is actually deceiving you, and how to make your own displays of data better.

The core ideas I got from reading this book are: Think about what visual elements can be removed while still representing the data truthfully and in full. Think of how multiple sets of data relate to each other and think through the different types of visual displays to see what fits that best. Make sure to look for causes of exceptions in data patterns because that’s often what matters most.

This entry has been filed under book review.