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MSwaffer comments on Open Thread, May 18 - May 24, 2015 - Less Wrong
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I'm looking for some "next book" recommendations on typography and graphically displaying quantitative data.
I want to present quantitative arguments and technical concepts in an attractive manner via the web. I'm an experienced web developer about to embark on a Masters in computational statistics, so the "technical" side is covered. I'm solid enough on this to be able to direct my own development and pick what to study next.
I'm less hot on the graphical/design side. As part of my stats-heavy undergrad degree, I've had what I presume to be a fairly standard "don't use 3D pie charts" intro to quantitative data visualisation. I'm also reasonably well-introduced to web design fundamentals (colour spaces, visual composition, page layouts, etc.). That's where I'm starting out from.
I've read Butterick's Practical Typography, which I found quite informative and interesting. I'd now like a second resource on typography, ideally geared towards web usage.
I've also read Edward Tufte's Visual Display of Quantitative Information, which was also quite informative, but felt a bit dated. I can see why it's considered a classic, but I'd like to read something on a similar topic, only written this century, and maybe with a more technological focus.
Please offer me specific recommendations addressing the two above areas (typography and data visualisation), or if you're sufficiently advanced, please coherently extrapolate my volition and suggest how I can more broadly level up in this cluster of skills.
With your background in web development have you read things like Krug's Don't Make Me Think and William's The Non-Designer's Design Book? These are focused more on the design aspect of web however they contain some good underlying principles for data visualization as well.
Tufte's book are all great for underlying principles even though, as you noted, they aren't focused on modern technologies. Beautiful Evidence from 2006 has some updated thoughts but he still borrows heavily from his earlier books.
For general multimedia concepts, Mayer's Multimedia Learning is good from a human learning perspective (my background).
I found Data Points: Visualization That Means Something to be a good modern guide.
From my perspective, I am glad you are looking down the road and recognizing that after the data are analyzed the analysis must be communicated.
This is all kinds of useful. Thanks!
You can learn an astonishing amount about web development without ever having to think about how it'll look to another human being. In a professional context, I know enough to realise when I should hand it over to a specialist, but I won't always have that luxury.
You are definitely right in that we need to think about how it will look to another human being.
If you are interested in pursuing this idea further, Don Norman has written a number of books about design in general. These are not about graphic design but just design thinking. The Psychology of Everyday Things is a classic and Emotional Design builds on the work of people like Antonio Damasio with regard to the role of emotion in cognition. Norman has another book called The Design of Everyday Things which I have not read but I imagine is a great read as well.
All of these works emphasize the role of design in helping humans accomplish their goals. Some practitioners of data analytics view the output of prose, charts, tables and graphs as the final product. In most cases however the final product of a data analytics effort is a decision. That decision might be to do more research, to buy one company versus another or propose a new policy to Congress. Regardless of the nature of the decision, how well you design the output will have an impact on the quality of the decision made.
I've read The Design of Everyday Things. You don't need to read The Psychology of..., as it's the same book, renamed for marketing reasons.