Visualisation Books

Recently, I had been reading up on visualisation.
Learning how to build effective visualisation for communicating to a specific group of audience.
Here are the few books that I had read for the last couple of months.

1. Good Charts : HBR guide to making smarter, more persuasive data visualization (Scott Berinato)
2. Slide:ology the art and science of creating great presentations (Nancy Duarte)
3. Information Dashboard Design (Stephen Few)
4. Storytelling with data (Cole Nussbaumer Knafic)

I think it will be good if I could summarise the book contents in a few sentences but this is challenging!

So I decided to write points that the book had caught my attention.
And of course, those would be what i could remember since it has been a while I finished the books except the last one which I just finished reading yesterday.

In "HBR guide", it starts off focusing on choosing the right chart which is also mentioned in "Storytelling with data".
Therefore, Point #1 : To have contextual awareness;
Who are we showing the charts to? What is the objective that we are driving?
What is the expected outcome/decision that we want the audience to make?

"HBR guide" also mentions that Simplicity is courageous. There are times that we want to show all the information to the audience. And that can be so overwhelming. We are just being afraid that we may forget to show something important.
Therefore, we have to be courageous enough to remove unnecessary details but focus on the information that we will need to achieve the objective. 
Don't be afraid of white space!
This is also emphasised in "Information Dashboard Design" where we see Leonardo da Vinci 's quote : Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.  
So Point #2: Simplify 

In all books (i think..or excluding slide:ology), it is best to present and practise.
This is can be done by looking at other' visualisation. In "HBR guide", it gives a guide that we can
1) make note of what you see first then
2) make notes on likes, dislikes and wish-i-saw.
3) find 3 things that you would change and why
4) lastly, sketch and prototype own verson and critqiue.

While "Storytelling" also provides some website that one can visit.
There is a site : viz.wtf that shows visualisation that makes no sense. I guess it is good to learn what is bad and not make it yourself. Point #3: Practise and learn

In "Information Dashboard design", Dashboard is focused. (as what we can tell from the title..)
I guess what caught my eye is Stephen's definition of Dashboard:  Point #4: Dashboard's definition

A dashboard is a visual display of the most important information needed to achieve one or more objectives that has been consolidated on a single computer screen so it can be monitored at a glance.
&
A dashboard is not
- a display that is used for data exploration and analysis
- a portal
- a scorecard
- report that people use to look up for facts

This has truly helped to shape my opinion of a dashboard since I myself have been involving in dashboard project at work.
Key word: Single computer screen..This is quite different from the direction that my boss is driving at. We are going for single view (users may need to scroll down).
Hmm.. But i agree that it should be in a single computer screen for ease of viewing. But anyway..back to the book!

In building charts, or even slides, there should be a structure that we should build it.
Also, the visual elements should be used wisely.
so we see Gestalt Principles of Visual perception being introduced.
Proximity; Similarity; Enclosure; Closure; Continuity; Connection 
And Colour is also very important as it brings focus to the data that you want the audience to be looking at. Point #5 : Think like a designer ("Storytelling")

Good Colours to use : Grey, Blue, Orange

In "Storytelling", it also mentions that we should also use text wisely.For instance, Slide Heading: instead of "2015 Budget", we can put "Estimated 2015 spending is above budget".
This sets the expectation for your audience. Point #6: Text is your friend

Okay so that's all for now. Tomorrow, i shall begin on my next visualisation book!