Visual & Statistical Thinking: Displays of Evidence for Decision Making

(Space shuttle and cholera epidemic examples.)


A great way to get started on Tufte   August 3, 2000
Steve Frazier (Seattle)
135 out of 136 found this review helpful

Edward Tufte has written 3 big, justifiably famous and well liked books. They're also beautiful and expensive. This is really a booklet, a reprint of a chapter of one of his books, and is a great way to get started on the way he thinks. It explores how graphics were used to track down the source of a cholera epidemic in London -- and how bad chart-making and graphics could have led to the wrong conclusion. The second example in this excerpt explores the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger. In this absorbing example, Tufte takes the 13 pages of (badly organized) data that the engineers debated on the night before the space shuttle was scheduled to blast off. Tufte first tears apart the charts, and demonstrates why even though the engineers reached the right conclusion (don't launch), why the data was presented so badly that NASA overruled them (resulting in the Challenger explosion). Then, Tufte rearranges the same data into a couple of clear graphic displays that demonstrate they clearly had enough data to demonstrate that the launch of the Challenger was clearly occurring at grave risk. A great example of clear thinking at work.

OK, so maybe great graphics won't save the world. But this is a good, well priced introduction into Tufte's line of thinking. If you think you might like his stuff, buy this; get hooked; buy the big books.


Graphs done right vs. graphs done wrong   January 25, 2003
Richard Frantz Jr. (Cheshire, CT USA)
26 out of 26 found this review helpful

This is a 31 page pamphlet reproducing chapter 2 of Tufte's 1997 "Visual Explanation:images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative". It contains two case studies: doing it right illustrated by John Snow's famous Cholera investigation and doing it wrong showing charts used to determine the ill-fated challenger accident (could almost be renamed as an example of liing with charts what what to suspect).

Production values are unusually high (which we'd expect from Tufte) with heavy paper, well printed, excellent illustration and color pictures. The pages are large 8.5"x11". The only thing I'm concerned about is the durability of the cover pages (paper back).

Two really good eamples, one good/one bad, of the use of charts.
Low price, 5 stars.


Warning: this is a chapter of a book you may already have.   July 19, 2000
Bette Noire
45 out of 45 found this review helpful

Rather than a new work, this is actually Chapter 2 of "Visual Explanations, Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative," and I wish it had been represented as such on the cover. The graphics are his least inspiring. Nevertheless, anything by Edward R. Tufte is bound to be brilliant, so I give this one five stars. As for his other books, there aren't enough stars. My favorite: "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information."


Tops in useful info, provocative ideas, and deep thinking.   April 9, 1999
Neyzen Hasan
45 out of 51 found this review helpful

Chapter Two as a separate reprint fits perfectly with teaching a one-week topic in an editing class. In my "Editing for Science and Technology" class at George Washington University Center for Professional Education, my students and I found the booklet ideal for homework and discussion. The students, mostly working professionals, perked up more than usual when we took on Tufte's examples and ideas. I recommend it without reservation.