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Douglas_Knight comments on Open Thread, May 18 - May 24, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion

4 Post author: Gondolinian 18 May 2015 12:01AM

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Comment author: sixes_and_sevens 18 May 2015 10:38:05AM 12 points [-]

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.

Comment author: Douglas_Knight 18 May 2015 05:32:50PM *  3 points [-]

Learn the library ggplot2. It is worth learning the language R just to use this library (though there is a port in progress for python/pandas). Even if you cannot incorporate the library into your workflow, its very good defaults show you what you should be doing with more work in other libraries.

It is named after a book, the Grammar of Graphics, that I have not read.

Comment author: Lumifer 18 May 2015 06:24:06PM 5 points [-]

I don't know if I'm that enthusiastic about ggplot2. It is certainly a competent library and it produces pretty plots. However it has a pronounced "my way or the highway" streak which sometimes gets in the way. I like nice defaults, I don't like it when a library enforces its opinions on me (see e.g. this noting that Hadley is the ggplot2 author).

Comment author: sixes_and_sevens 18 May 2015 06:13:42PM 2 points [-]

I've dabbled with ggplot, but I've put it on hold for the immediate future in lieu of getting to grips with D3. I'll be getting all the R I can handle next year.

I did not know about the book, but it's available to view from various sources. If I get time I'll give it a look-in and report back.