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| My "five-foot shelf" -- more like an 18-inch shelf -- of books that provide useful insight and reference material for my work in data visualization. |
Back in 1909, Charles W. Eliot, the president of Harvard University, began publishing a fifty-volume set of
classic works that he thought could make up a “five-foot shelf” of books that a typical reader could use to obtain the basis of knowledge similar to a liberal arts education. By today’s standards, it's a fairly self-indulgent and less than objective approach to creating general knowledge. That said, the idea of compiling a series of works that can serve as an intellectual resource throughout one’s career is appealing.
This annotated bibliography is meant for a general audience to give some context about what data visualization is, and how we can harness it for creating insight, conveying ideas, and making sense of the world that surrounds us. Most, if not all, should be available through your preferred online bookstore or your local library.
This book–a beautiful volume–compiles the diagrams that Florence Nightingale created throughout her career, emphasizing the great visualizations she created during the Crimean War to illustrate the difference between deaths from wounds and other military causes, and preventable deaths through cholera and infection. Along with John Snow’s South London cholera map, it was a game-changer in advancing the thinking of public health advocates around the relationship between sanitation and disease prevention.
This is an extraordinary volume. W.E.B. Dubois, a Harvard-trained sociologist (indeed, the first Black recipient of a doctorate at Harvard) created a series of data visualizations for the 1900 Paris World Exposition documenting the state of the Black community in the United States thirty-five years after the end of the Civil War. They are astonishing in their detail and presentation of economic data, and make extremely effective use of color and design, made all the more extraordinary by the fact that they are hand-drawn.
Alberto Cairo, The Truthful Art: Data, Charts, and Maps for Communication. New Riders, 2016.
Many students have encountered Alberto Cairo’s work in the Data Analytics and Visualization program. His work is accessible and often has a heavy focus on political analytics, communication, and messaging.
A portable trade paperback containing many examples of data storytelling, with a brisk and engaging approach to best practices.
A more academic style of monograph, which tells the history of data visualization from the perspective of journalism. Dick describes the careers of data visualization pioneers like William Playfair (see below) and also discusses how journalists have used data visualization, long predating the modern interest in data journalism.
Catherine D’Ignazio and Lauren F. Klein. Data Feminism. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2020.
This book focuses on how data analysis and visualization can be made accessible and relevant to all, and avoid conscious or unconscious bias in its reporting, analysis, and interpretation of data. The authors make the point that they are not only advocating improved equity in reporting for gender but for other areas as well.
This book highlights visual storytelling with data and includes many best practices in data visualization emphasizing the role of narrative arcs in creating urgency and relevance. It’s an invaluable resource for ensuring that your data visualizations are not only artful but speak to the desired audience.
Infographic Design: Visual Storytelling with Information and Data. Berkeley, CA: Gingko Press, 2021.
An inventory of notable data visualizations published in 2021. Many of the visualizations are beautiful and complex and can help stimulate design thinking. The tradeoff between clarity and complexity in this book is often biased towards the latter.
This book is a useful history of the discipline of data visualization. It’s notable for its discussion of the John Snow map, and how it altered current thinking about statistics – then focused mostly on pattern recognition – towards using data analysis and its cousin, data visualization, to use the scientific method to improve our understanding of the world around us.
Scott Galloway, Adrift: America in 100 Charts. New York: Portfolio/Penguin, 2022.
Just published in 2022, this is an interesting counterpoint to DuBois’s visualizations, offering perspective on the United States at this unique point in its history, marked by political division, economic inequality, and struggles to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic.
Kat Holmes, Mismatch, How Inclusion Shapes Design. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2018.
A valuable book about inclusivity in design. While the focus is on product design, the insights are valuable for information design as well. It is a quick read, and you can also search for Kat Holme’s lectures, including TED Talks, on YouTube which cover similar material.
This is both an epistolary book (a collection of letters, of a sort) and a testament to the strength of hand-drawn data visualizations. Giorgia Lupi (who received an honorary degree in fine arts from MICA in 2022), and her friend Stefanie Posavec, spent a year sending postcards visually describing all elements of their life to each other. It’s a testament to the important role that hand-drawn visualizations can have in storytelling.
William Playfair, The Commercial and Political Atlas, Representing, by Stained Copper-Plate Charts, The Progress of the Commerce, Revenues, Expenditures, and Debts of England During The Whole of the 18th Century (3rd ed). London, UK: T. Burton, 1801. Available via Google Books at https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Commercial_and_Political_Atlas/dgRdAAAAcAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0 .
William Playfair was a Scottish political economist who wrote the first and most enduring economic treatise containing data visualizations. They focus on the British economy including balance of payments, economic volume, and trade. It’s useful to look at the hand-drawn images that were engraved onto copper plates for printing and publication.
This is a very quick read and is true to the title. Particularly for students who are not as familiar with business analysis, decision-making, and processes, it’s an extremely valuable primer on how to make sure that data visualizations are consistent with business best practices. Crown also publishes a companion book, 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School, which is also a useful read, but more on the relationship between aesthetics and design.
For those who are working in an information technology department or CIO, or managing projects or programs involving IT people, this book is a really helpful introduction to the unique challenges of managing IT projects. For non-IT staff, it’s especially valuable in that it focuses on best management practices and not coding, programming, or other technical functions.
Tufte’s book is probably the most widely read and influential book on data visualization. Readers often have a strong opinion of the author; his detest of “chartjunk” and PowerPoint are sometimes at odds with what are often seen as best design and business practices. That said, he has very valuable insights about simplicity and clarity that have stood the test of time.
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