Sunday, October 14, 2012

Third edition of Colin Ware's classic "Information Visualization"


Sometimes the dynamics of the blogosphere and of the publishing world puzzle me. Why hasn't any visualization or infographics blogger written yet about the third edition of Colin Ware's Information Visualization: Perception for Design? Why is it getting so little attention (I am using Amazon's Best Sellers rank as a rough proxy for sales)?

In the back cover, Stephen Few praises the book: "Oh my God, the Bible just got better." But this is not just any Bible. This edition is the equivalent of the King James version of it. Information Visualization is the book that you have to read if you want to learn how research on perception and cognition should inform the way we design graphics. Part of the reason for my enthusiasm is that it seems that all that made the second edition great has been preserved, tweaked, and improved. The other part is the new "168 explicit guidelines" scattered across this massive tome. I mentioned one of them in a post a week ago.

Please do get a copy. Study it. It's worth your time and money.