Books: what should I read first?
If you need to pick a book to get started, I recommend Alberto Cairo’s the The Truthful Art.
The question I get asked a lot: if I am going to read a book to get started learning about Vis, which one should I read?
The (very professorial) answer is, of course, depends on who you are and what you want to learn.
But, after thinking about this for a while, I can actually recommend one as the right first choice for most people: Alberto Cairo’s The Truthful Art (see my discssion at Cairo: The Truthful Art and The Functional Art). For some people, some other book may actually be better suited for you - but you will probably want to read this one first (or second).
Some of the alternatives…
- I am limiting myself to picking one book. In my class, I have students use a mix of chapters from different books.
- If you are a CS graduate student and want to think about visualization in a deep and rigorous manner, Munzner: Visualization Analysis and Design should definitely be on high on your list. But you might want to start with Cairo first to get some context.
- If you are more interested in the human element and how psychology connects to visualization, Ware: Visual Thinking for Information Design is a great starting point, and is a thin book you can read quickly. You still might want to read Cairo first to get a broader perspective.
- If you want a practical “let me make something quickly”, I still recommend Cairo to get a perspective on how to think about what is the right thing to make. I don’t have suggestions for good “tool specific” or highly practical books. What I find is that once you have the foundations, you can pick up the tools from web resources.
There are a lot of books out there… and I’ve only looked at a few of them. You can see some ideas in the Resources section or the Books tag.