Particularly noteworthy are the numerous historical examples of past efforts to make sense of complex systems of information. In this new companion volume, The Book of Trees, data viz expert Manuel Lima examines the more than eight hundred year history of the tree diagram, from its roots in the illuminated manuscripts of medieval monasteries to its current resurgence as an elegant means of visualization. Lima presents two hundred intricately detailed tree diagram illustrations on a remarkable variety of subjects—from some of the earliest known examples from ancient Mesopotamia to the manuscripts of medieval monasteries to contributions by leading contemporary designers. A timeline of capsule biographies on key figures in the development of the tree diagram rounds out this one-of-a-kind visual compendium.

    In Data Points: Visualization That Means Something, author Nathan Yau presents an intriguing complement to his bestseller Visualize This, this time focusing on the graphics side of data analysis. Using examples from art, design, business, statistics, cartography, and online media, he explores both standard-and not so standard-concepts and ideas about illustrating data.Shares intriguing ideas from Nathan Yau, author of Visualize This and creator of flowingdata.com, with over 66,000 subscribers Focuses on visualization, data graphics that help viewers see trends and patterns they might not otherwise see in a table Includes examples from the author's own illustrations, as well as from professionals in statistics, art, design, business, computer science, cartography, and more Examines standard rules across all visualization applications, then explores when and where you can break those rules Create visualizations that register at all levels, with Data Points: Visualization That Means Something.

    The linear metaphor is ubiquitous in everyday visual representations of time—in almanacs, calendars, charts, and graphs of all sorts. Even our everyday speech is filled with talk of time having a "before" and an "after" or being "long" and "short." The timeline is such a familiar part of our mental furniture that it is sometimes hard to remember that we invented it in the first place. And yet, in its modern form, the timeline is not even 250 years old. The story of what came before has never been fully told, until now. Cartographies of Time is the first comprehensive history of graphic representations of time in Europe and the United States from 1450 to the present. Authors Daniel Rosenberg and Anthony Grafton have crafted a lively history featuring fanciful characters and unexpected twists and turns. From medieval manuscripts to websites, Cartographies of Time features a wide variety of timelines that in their own unique ways—curving, crossing, branching—defy conventional thinking about the form. A fifty-four-foot-long timeline from 1753 is mounted on a scroll and encased in a protective box. Another timeline uses the different parts of the human body to show the genealogies of Jesus Christ and the rulers of Saxony. Ladders created by missionaries in eighteenth-century Oregon illustrate Bible stories in a vertical format to convert Native Americans. Also included is the April 1912 Marconi North Atlantic Communication chart, which tracked ships, including the Titanic, at points in time rather than by theirgeographic location, alongside little-known works by famous figures, including a historical chronology by the mapmaker Gerardus Mercator and a chronological board game patented by Mark Twain. Presented in a lavishly illustrated edition, Cartographies of Time is a revelation to anyone interested in the role visual forms have played in our evolving conception of history.

    Key concepts are combined with detailed illustrations and step-by-step exercises to acquaint readers with the building blocks of ArcGIS® Desktop including ArcMap™, for displaying and querying maps, ArcCatalog™, for organizing geographic data, and ModelBuilder™, for diagramming and processing solutions to complex spatial analysis problems. Its broad scope, simple style, and practical orientation make this book an ideal classroom text and an excellent resource for those learning GIS on their own. A data CD for working through the exercises and a fully functioning 180-day trial ArcGIS® Desktop 10 software is included.

    Ware's updated review of empirical research and interface design examples will do much to accelerate innovation and adoption of information visualization." —Ben Shneiderman, University of Maryland"Colin Ware is the perfect person to write this book, with a long history of prominent contributions to the visual interaction with machines and to information visualization directly. It goes a long way towards joining science to the practical design of information visualization systems." —from the foreword by Stuart Card, PARCMost 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 web site, or view graphics, our understanding is greatly enhanced or impeded by the way information is presented. By explaining in detail how we think visually, this book provides guidance on how to construct effective interactive information displays.This book combines a strictly scientific approach to human perception with a practical concern for the rules governing the effective visual presentation of information. Surveying the research of leading psychologists and neurophysiologists, author Colin Ware isolates key principles at work in vision and perception, and from them derives specific and effective visualization techniques suitable for a wide range of scenarios. Information Visualization offers practical guidelines that can be applied by anyone, and covers all facets of visual perception: color, organization, space perception, motion, and texture.* Major revision of this classic work, with a new chapter on visual thinking, new sections on face perception and flow visualization, an appendix on how to evaluate visualizations,and a greatly expanded chapter on color and color sequences. *New to this edition is the full-color treatment throughout, to better display over 400 illustrations.*From a leading researcher in the field of human perception who has brought together, in a single resource, all current scientific insight into the question of data visualization.

    Presentation software is one of the few tools that requires professionals to think visually on an almost daily basis. But unlike verbal skills, effective visual expression is not easy, natural, or actively taught in schools or business training programs. slide:ology fills that void.Written by Nancy Duarte, President and CEO of Duarte Design, the firm that created the presentation for Al Gore's Oscar-winning film, An Inconvenient Truth, this book is full of practical approaches to visual story development that can be applied by anyone. The book combines conceptual thinking and inspirational design, with insightful case studies from the world's leading brands. With slide:ology you'll learn to:Connect with specific audiencesTurn ideas into informative graphicsUse sketching and diagramming techniques effectivelyCreate graphics that enable audiences to process information easilyDevelop truly influential presentationsUtilize presentation technology to your advantageMillions of presentations and billions of slides have been produced -- and most of them miss the mark. slide:ology will challenge your traditional approach to creating slides by teaching you how to be a visual thinker. And it will help your career by creating momentum for your cause.--back cover

    The back half of the book contains a wide range of case studies from design firms around the world so designers can see the techniques previously outlined in the first half of the book. The author also critiques and explains why the design is successful in terms of formal quality (Aesthetics) and function (How does it improve communication?).

    Scholars and students need to be able to analyze, design and curate information into useful tools of communication, insight and understanding. This book is the starting point in learning the process and skills of data visualization, teaching the concepts and skills of how to present data and inspiring effective visual design. Benefits of this book: A flexible step-by-step journey that equips you to achieve great data visualization.A curated collection of classic and contemporary examples, giving illustrations of good and bad practice Examples on every page to give creative inspiration Illustrations of good and bad practice show you how to critically evaluate and improve your own work Advice and experience from the best designers in the field Loads of online practical help, checklists, case studies and exercises make this the most comprehensive text available

    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, you'll 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 you're working with-business, science, politics, sports, or even your own personal finances-this 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.You'll also get to peek into the creative process of some of the world's most talented designers and visual journalists, including Conde Nast Traveler's John Grimwade, National Geographic Magazine's Fernando Baptista, The New York Times' Steve Duenes, The Washington Post's Hannah Fairfield, Hans Rosling of the Gapminder Foundation, Stanford's 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 world's 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 world's top designers and visual artistsOn 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. You'll 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.

    Beautiful Evidence is about how seeing turns into showing, how data and evidence turn into explanation. The book identifies excellent and effective methods for showing nearly every kind of information, suggests many new designs (including sparklines), and provides analytical tools for assessing the credibility of evidence presentations (which are seen from both sides: how to produce and how to consume presentations). For alert consumers of presentations, there are chapters on diagnosing evidence corruption and PowerPoint pitches. Beautiful Evidence concludes with two chapters that leave the world of pixel and paper flatland representations - and move onto seeing and thinking in space land, the real-land of three-space and time.

    Although dashboards are potentially powerful, this potential is rarely realized. The greatest display technology in the world won't solve this if you fail to use effective visual design. And if a dashboard fails to tell you precisely what you need to know in an instant, you'll never use it, even if it's filled with cute gauges, meters, and traffic lights. Don't let your investment in dashboard technology go to waste.This book will teach you the visual design skills you need to create dashboards that communicate clearly, rapidly, and compellingly. Information Dashboard Design will explain how to:Avoid the thirteen mistakes common to dashboard design Provide viewers with the information they need quickly and clearly Apply what we now know about visual perception to the visual presentation of information Minimize distractions, cliches, and unnecessary embellishments that create confusion Organize business information to support meaning and usability Create an aesthetically pleasing viewing experience Maintain consistency of design to provide accurate interpretation Optimize the power of dashboard technology by pairing it with visual effectiveness Stephen Few has over 20 years of experience as an IT innovator, consultant, and educator. As Principal of the consultancy Perceptual Edge, Stephen focuses on data visualization for analyzing and communicating quantitative business information. He provides consulting and training services, speaks frequently at conferences, and teaches in the MBA program at the University of California in Berkeley. He is also the author of Show Me the Numbers: Designing Tables and Graphs to Enlighten. Visit his website at www.perceptualedge.com.

    Design for Information critically examines other design solutions —current and historic— helping you gain a larger understanding of how to solve specific problems. This book is designed to help you foster the development of a repertoire of existing methods and concepts to help you overcome design problems. Learn the ins and outs of data visualization with this informative book that provides you with a series of current visualization case studies. The visualizations discussed are analyzed for their design principles and methods, giving you valuable critical and analytical tools to further develop your design process. The case study format of this book is perfect for discussing  the histories, theories and best practices in the field through real-world, effective visualizations. The selection represents a fraction of effective visualizations that we encounter in this burgeoning field, allowing you the opportunity to extend your study to other solutions in your specific field(s) of practice. This book is also helpful to students in other disciplines who are involved with visualizing information, such as those in the digital humanities and most of the sciences.

    It's great to have theory and evidenced-based research at your disposal, but what will you do when somebody asks you to make your dashboard 'cooler' by adding packed bubbles and donut charts?The expert authors have a combined 30-plus years of hands-on experience helping people in hundreds of organizations build effective visualizations. They have fought many 'best practices' battles and having endured bring an uncommon empathy to help you, the reader of this book, survive and thrive in the data visualization world.A well-designed dashboard can point out risks, opportunities, and more; but common challenges and misconceptions can make your dashboard useless at best, and misleading at worst. The Big Book of Dashboards gives you the tools, guidance, and models you need to produce great dashboards that inform, enlighten, and engage.

    But with the increasing power of visualization software today, scientists, engineers, and business analysts often have to navigate a bewildering array of visualization choices and options.This practical book takes you through many commonly encountered visualization problems, and it provides guidelines on how to turn large datasets into clear and compelling figures. What visualization type is best for the story you want to tell? How do you make informative figures that are visually pleasing? Author Claus O. Wilke teaches you the elements most critical to successful data visualization.Explore the basic concepts of color as a tool to highlight, distinguish, or represent a valueUnderstand the importance of redundant coding to ensure you provide key information in multiple waysUse the book's visualizations directory, a graphical guide to commonly used types of data visualizationsGet extensive examples of good and bad figuresLearn how to use figures in a document or report and how employ them effectively to tell a compelling story

    Building on their experience as professional systems analysts and award-winning teachers, authors Dennis, Wixom, and Roth capture the experience of developing and analyzing systems in a way that students can understand and apply.With Systems Analysis and Design, 4th edition , students will leave the course with experience that is a rich foundation for further work as a systems analyst.