Visual & Statistical Thinking: Displays of Evidence for Decision Making: Amazon.ca: Edward R. Tufte: Books

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5.0 out of 5 stars Graphs done right vs. graphs done wrong, Jan 25 2003

By

Richard Frantz Jr. (Cheshire, CT USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Visual & Statistical Thinking: Displays of Evidence for Decision Making (Paperback)

This is a 31 page pamphlet reproducing chapter 2 of Tufte's 1997 "Visual Explanation:images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative". It contains two case studies: doing it right illustrated by John Snow's famous Cholera investigation and doing it wrong showing charts used to determine the ill-fated challenger accident (could almost be renamed as an example of liing with charts what what to suspect).

Production values are unusually high (which we'd expect from Tufte) with heavy paper, well printed, excellent illustration and color pictures. The pages are large 8.5"x11". The only thing I'm concerned about is the durability of the cover pages (paper back).

Two really good eamples, one good/one bad, of the use of charts.
Low price, 5 stars.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Read his booklet and you will want more from Tufte, Sep 19 2002

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Hide Harashima (NYC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Visual & Statistical Thinking: Displays of Evidence for Decision Making (Paperback)

In "Visual & Statistical Thinking", Edward Tufte (a professor at Yale University, where he teaches statistical evidence and information design), provides two case study-like topics that explores how graphs and images provide better decision making. This clearly written booklet reiterates his focus on his other books: (1) The task in making decisions based on evidence is understanding how thing work (cause and effect), and (2) making decisions based on evidence requires appropriate display of that evidence. Good charts and images help reveal knowledge relevant to making informed decisions.

This booklet was a required text for a knowledge management course. I recommend this and all his books if you are an information architect, web designer, graphic artist, or anyone who works with providing and displaying data and information to others. Well worth the $$$

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5.0 out of 5 stars A great way to get started on Tufte, Aug 2 2000

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Steve Frazier (Seattle) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Visual & Statistical Thinking: Displays of Evidence for Decision Making (Paperback)

Edward Tufte has written 3 big, justifiably famous and well liked books. They're also beautiful and expensive. This is really a booklet, a reprint of a chapter of one of his books, and is a great way to get started on the way he thinks. It explores how graphics were used to track down the source of a cholera epidemic in London -- and how bad chart-making and graphics could have led to the wrong conclusion. The second example in this excerpt explores the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger. In this absorbing example, Tufte takes the 13 pages of (badly organized) data that the engineers debated on the night before the space shuttle was scheduled to blast off. Tufte first tears apart the charts, and demonstrates why even though the engineers reached the right conclusion (don't launch), why the data was presented so badly that NASA overruled them (resulting in the Challenger explosion). Then, Tufte rearranges the same data into a couple of clear graphic displays that demonstrate they clearly had enough data to demonstrate that the launch of the Challenger was clearly occurring at grave risk. A great example of clear thinking at work.

OK, so maybe great graphics won't save the world. But this is a good, well priced introduction into Tufte's line of thinking. If you think you might like his stuff, buy this; get hooked; buy the big books.

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Most recent customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Warning: this is a chapter of a book you may already have.
Rather than a new work, this is actually Chapter 2 of "Visual Explanations, Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative," and I wish it had been represented as such... Read more

Published on July 18 2000 by Bette Noire

5.0 out of 5 stars Tops in useful info, provocative ideas, and deep thinking.
Chapter Two as a separate reprint fits perfectly with teaching a one-week topic in an editing class. Read more

Published on April 8 1999 by Neyzen Hasan