The main readings for this class will be provided (they will come from papers, or book chapters that I will provide). However, I was going to use so much of Colin Ware’s book, that it defies academic fair use, so it is a required textbook.If you don’t want to buy it, it will be on reserve at Wendt library.But you don’t have to buy it! The library has it online!
Required Textbook:
Visual Thinking: for Design, by Colin Ware. Published by Morgan Kaufman, 2008. ISBN-13: 978-0123708960. (amazon)
This is a fabulous book. We’ll use all of the chapters. The only downside is that it isn’t as comprehensive as his earlier book. But I picked this one since Information Visualization might be a little bit too much for some people.
There will be required readings from this book.
Fortunately, the library has this book online through Science Direct, so you don’t need to buy it! (it’s a good book, and you might want to buy it anyway)
Alternate Textbook:
Information Visualization, Second Edition: Perception for Design, by Colin Ware. Published by Morgan Kaufman, 2004. (amazon)
This was going to be my choice for the textbook, but I thought it might be a little much for most students. It overlaps a lot with Visual Thinking for Design. If you own this book, you don’t need to buy Visual Thinking – however, you might want to look at someone else’s copy.
Another Useful Book
Visualizing Data. by Ben Fry. O’Reilly 2008.
This is less a book about visualization than it is about the process of doing visualizations and how to program in Processing. If you’re not a computer scientist, and you need to learn some simple programming to do some visualization, this book is a good place to start. Its more about working through the process of simple examples than giving you insights into visualization in general.
You don’t need to buy this book – UW has access to an online copy (here’s a link that accesses it through the proxy so it works off campus): http://ezproxy.library.wisc.edu/login?url=http://proquest.safaribooksonline.com/9780596514556
Recommended Reading
Tufte’s books are an essential guide to the design aspects of visualization. For some, they are treated as religon (we’ll discuss this in class). Even if you disagree with him, it’s hard to argue his importance in the field, and the beauty of his books.
If you work in this field, you will want to own these books – they are nice on the coffee table if nothing else. Its hard to justify them as textbooks. I have requested that they be put on reserve at Wendt. We’ll have a reading or two from each (provided as scans).
The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, 2nd edition. By Edward Tufte. Graphics Press, 2001. (amazon)
Envisioning Information. By Edward Tufte. Graphics Press, 1990. (amazon)
Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative. By Edward Tufte. Graphics Press, 1997. (amazon)
Beautiful Evidence. By Edward Tufte. Graphics Press, 2006. (amazon)
At the surface, Scott McCloud’s books seem to be about comics. But, if you dig deeper, you realize that he has a lot of amazingly insightful things to say about visualization in general.
Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. by Scott McCloud. Harper, 1994(amazon)
I don’t think people would take me seriously if I made this a textbook. But you’ll learn a ton by reading it. It will help you rethink what visual communication is about. His new book is good too, but a little less relevant to a visualization class.
Making Comics: Storytelling Secrets of Comics. by Scott McCloud. Haper, 2006.
Other Noteworthy Books
There are a lot of books out there on Vis and related topics. This list is not exhaustive, but are ones that may be useful for people in this class for one reason or another.
Beautiful Visualization. Edited by Iliinksy and Steele.
This book has essays ranging in quality from annoying to pretty good. What I like best are the essays that describe some design process. One great thing about this book is that the UW Library has it available online. We might use a chapter or two for the class.
Designing Data Visualizations. By Iliinsky and Steele.
A couple of bloggers write a book about the basics of vis. It’s an OK survey of some of the main ideas (like choosing encodings, …) without any of the academic formality or art/design pompousness. The main thing that makes it recommendable is that the UW Library should get it available online through Safari. I may pick some readings from this book.
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