I bought this book as a present for a friend who has an interest in typography. She's also been interested in graphic design, which is why I picked this book in particular.

I've read part of it myself (a library copy), before deciding to buy a copy for my friend. It's stunningly simple at first glance. The textual descriptions are spare but, should the reader want to, they guide him/her to making detailed examinations of the illustrations/figures. It is these individual examinations that one will get the most learning from in this book.

This is a great book; I'm leaning towards getting a copy for myself, but I also want to check out Tufte's 'Visual Display of Quantitative Information', as that pertains to my more immediate need.

I'm a journalist studying design and technology at Stanford. this text richly details subtleties of visual design, visual thinking and data presentation. It was recommended to me by a computer scientist who as working on data visualization.

I would follow Tufte's advice in the forward and give the fairly thin volume plenty of time and careful study. Every visual should be poured over again and again. You will be rewarded for careful consideration.

Passionate exposition on effective visualizations. Key takeaways are small-multiples, use of color, and use of details. However, the material on maps is sketchy. While mostly good, it is also distractedly didactic. While a must-have in any collection on data visualizations, for people looking for only one book on effective data visualizations, this is not it.
This book is like the poetry of visualizations; you will need to supplement it with books that are the prose of visualizations - see suggestions at the end of the review.

Why 3 Stars???
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I initially gave this four stars, but then changed it to three stars. This may seem harsh, but hear me out. There is lots that is good in the book. However, this book's focus is more on cartography and maps. And this is where it falls short. It does not address the issue of map based visualizations in any sort of depth. Not much space is devoted to the different types of map based visualizations - dot plots, qualitative and quantitative choropleths (color patches), heatmaps, proportional bars, 3D maps, maps with variable sized markers, isopleths, flow maps, dot-location maps, graduated symbol maps, and much, much, more. The other reason for deducting two stars is the fact that this book, in 2009, does read a bit dated. It is a beautifully laid out book, that almost falls into the coffee-table book category, but looking beyond that, the material does show its age. 10 or 15 years ago the rating would have been 4 or 5 stars. Perhaps unfair on my part...

Excerpt:
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On the topic of spatial maps, Tufte highlights a problem that may emerge with conventional choropleths (blot maps): "(they)... paint over areas formed by given geographic or political boundaries ..." and resulting in non-uniform sizes, and "historical changes in political boundaries disrupt continuity of statistical comparisons." The solution? Or at least one solution: "Mesh maps finesse these problems." Taking the example of a map of Japan, "... the whole country of Japan was divided up in 379,000 equal-sized units and then, in a heroic endeavor, census data and addresses were collated to match the new grid squares." [page 40, 41]


Some of the examples may not strike a resonant chord with everyone - for example, the "Weather Chart" at the top of page 32 looks too dense and full of diverse symbols to be truly effective.

Excerpts from the book:
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"All communication between the readers of an image and the makers of an image must now take place on a two-dimensional surface. Escaping this flatland is the essential task of envisioning information." [page 12]

Given the inherent multi-dimensionality of data (a measure that represents value or values over time, region, and other dimensions - e.g. number of employees by year, by country, and by line-of-business), Tufte states that we should "... increase (1) the number of dimensions that can be represented on plane surfaces and (2) the data density (amount of information per unit area)." [page 13]
This focus on data density finds resonance throughout the book:
"Simplicity of reading derives from the context of detailed and complex information, properly arranged. A most unconventional design strategy is revealed: to clarify, add detail." [page 37]

Tufte is especially harsh on charts that feature "chart junk", what he describes as "... display apparatus and ornamentation" that "... seek to attract and divert attention...", and that "Lurking behind chart junk is contempt both for information and for the audience. ... designing as if readers were obtuse and uncaring... " [page 33, 34]

"The struggle between maintenance of context and enforcement of comparison... " [page 77]

Excessive or wanton use of color can be very damaging to the visualization. Eduard Imhof enumerates four rules of minimizing such color damage:
"First rule: Pure, bright colors or very strong colors have loud, unbearable effects when they stand unrelieved over large areas adjacent to each other, but extraordinary effects can be achieved when they are used sparingly on or between dull background tones. ...
Second rule: The placing of light, bright colors mixed with white next to each other usually produces unpleasant results..." [page 82]

Tufte lists "... the fundamental uses of color in information design: to label (color as noun), to measure (color as quantity), to represent or intimate reality (color as representation), and to enliven or decorate (color as beauty)." [page 81]

Cons:
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The book is short. It doesn't feel so, but is in fact all of 126 pages.
More color is needed.
Some of the reproductions are not very clear, and it is a real strain on the eyes to discern the data and the visualization: certainly not a ringing endorsement for a book on visualizations.
Without some any formal, theoretical background, this book feels incomplete.

In Closing:
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Consider this: while you may use other books more frequently to learn and reference when creating visualizations, charts, or dashboards, you will want to keep this book handy to remind yourself of the bigger picture and the historical context of visualizations.

Suggested Additional Reading:
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You should supplement the visual feast in Tufte's "Envisioning Information" with these books:
- Tufte's other book, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, 2nd edition, is probably the better one.
- Stephen Few's "Information Dashboard Design: The Effective Visual Communication of Data"
- Jenifer Tidwell's "Designing Interfaces: Patterns for Effective Interaction Design"
- Colin Ware's "Information Visualization, Second Edition: Perception for Design (Interactive Technologies)"
- Visualizing Data by William S. Cleveland
- Exploratory Data Analysis by John W. Tukey
and many other books that cover the topic of information visualizations.

Tufte is an information design pundit in the first order, and this book explains the issues that designers of information displays face across all number of print situations and for most data sets. The design of the book itself is concise and engaging. The text can be dense, it is extremely well and frequently cited. With the quality and sheer number of historical references from a variety of sources the reader quickly realizes that Tufte has tapped into visual design principles that transcend trends, technological advances, and local tastes. A virtual must-read for data display technicians.

Don't get it why this book is so popular. The visual examples that are given are hard to understand without reading the text. I would think that a book that explains how information is envisioned would be self explanatory trough the visuals in the book. I would not recommend to anyone who is superficially interested in design. If you are a professional designer it could maybe be something for you.