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Product Description

Most designers know that yellow text presented against a blue background reads clearly and easily, but how many can explain why, and what really are the best ways to help others and ourselves clearly see key patterns in a bunch of data?

This book explores the art and science of why we see objects the way we do. Based on the science of perception and vision, the author presents the key principles at work for a wide range of applications--resulting in visualization of improved clarity, utility, and persuasiveness. The book offers practical guidelines that can be applied by anyone: interaction designers, graphic designers of all kinds (including web designers), data miners, and financial analysts.

*First work to use the science of perception to help serious designers and analysts optimize understanding and perception of their data visualizations.

* Major revision of this classic work, with a new chapter on visual thinking, new sections on face perception and flow visualization, and a much expanded chapter on color and color sequences.

*New to this edition is the full color treatment throughout, to better display over 400 illustrations.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #182332 in Books
• Published on: 2004-04-21
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 1.05" h x 7.80" w x 9.64" l, 2.81 pounds
• Binding: Hardcover
• 486 pages

Amazon.com Review
Most designers know that yellow text presented against a blue background reads clearly and easily, but how many can explain why? Information Visualization: Perception for Design explores the art and science of why we see objects the way we do.

Although more technical than most graphic design books, the book "is intended to make [the data from the science and study of visualization] available to the non-specialist." Each chapter focuses on a different facet of human vision, like "Lightness, Brightness, Contrast, and Constancy" in chapter 3, or "Static and Moving Patterns" in chapter 4.

Although the author tries to put a great deal of scientific research data into pedestrian terms, the nature of the subject matter and the papers from which he culls his information make this task an uphill battle from the start. As a result, the book is full of valuable information, but it may not necessarily be right for the average graphic designer looking for a new inspirational spin. Serious interface designers, presentation designers, data analyzers, or any artist tasked with presenting ideas in a visual format, though, should come away from Information Visualization with a clearer understanding of the inner workings of perception. At the very least, they'll be able to explain why yellow text against blue is a good combination. --Mike Caputo

Review
"This unique and essential guide to human visual perception and related cognitive principles will enrich courses on information visualization and empower designers to see their way forward. Ware's updated review of empirical research and interface design examples will do much to accelerate innovation and adoption of information visualization."
-Ben Shneiderman, University of Maryland

"Colin Ware is the perfect person to write this book, with a long history of prominent contributions to the visual interaction with machines and to information visualization directly. It goes a long way towards joining science to the practical design of information visualization systems."
-from the foreword by Stuart Card, PARC

"Better than anyone else that I've encountered in my work, Colin Ware explains how visual perception works and how it applies to data presentation." - Stephen Few -- Intelligent Enterprise

From the Back Cover
"This unique and essential guide to human visual perception and related cognitive principles will enrich courses on information visualization and empower designers to see their way forward. Ware's updated review of empirical research and interface design examples will do much to accelerate innovation and adoption of information visualization."
-Ben Shneiderman, University of Maryland

"Colin Ware is the perfect person to write this book, with a long history of prominent contributions to the visual interaction with machines and to information visualization directly. It goes a long way towards joining science to the practical design of information visualization systems."
-from the foreword by Stuart Card, PARC

Most designers know that yellow text presented against a blue background reads clearly and easily, but how many can explain why, and what really are the best ways to help others and ourselves clearly see key patterns in a bunch of data? When we use software, access a web site, or view graphics, our understanding is greatly enhanced or impeded by the way information is presented. By explaining in detail how we think visually, this book provides guidance on how to construct effective interactive information displays.

This book combines a strictly scientific approach to human perception with a practical concern for the rules governing the effective visual presentation of information. Surveying the research of leading psychologists and neurophysiologists, author Colin Ware isolates key principles at work in vision and perception, and from them derives specific and effective visualization techniques suitable for a wide range of scenarios. Information Visualization offers practical guidelines that can be applied by anyone, and covers all facets of visual perception: color, organization, space perception, motion, and texture.

* Major revision of this classic work, with a new chapter on visual thinking, new sections on face perception and flow visualization, an appendix on how to evaluate visualizations,and a greatly expanded chapter on color and color sequences.

*New to this edition is the full-color treatment throughout, to better display over 400 illustrations.

*From a leading researcher in the field of human perception who has brought together, in a single resource, all current scientific insight into the question of data visualization.