Digital Diagrams: How to Design and Present Statistical Information Effectively

I realize that the reason so many people are disgusted with this book is that the author is far ahead of his time. The book is helpful and useful, chock full of new and innovative ways to present information. I am sure, that somewhere in the near future, the ideas in this book will be the standard for digital architecture. The ideas presented in this book help make charts accessible for everyone, not just the information architecture elite. You can only resist the new way of doing things for so long... Furthermore, this book is a reference, and no one is meant to copy the charts line for line. If you don't want to use purple, orange, and blue on your volume chart, then stick to black and grey while the rest of us ride the wave into the future of information presentation!I only wish there was an updated version (the last version was 2000), so that I could learn how to create diagrams with today's software.

I found this book to be a very useful resource for creating visually interesting informational graphics. I'm a technical communicator for a marketing-oriented company working in a number of different media, including print and web, and it is important to be able to attract and keep people's attention while conveying information. It may be that some of the methods provided in this book contradict E.Tufte's doctrines, but an ivory-tower nose-in-the-air approach ain't gonna move no product! Maybe I'm not a "serious Information Architect" -- That being said, I found the author's presentation and descriptions of the various types of charts and graphs helpful, and some of his layout ideas will be immediately valuable to me in my work.

As an experienced information designer I bought this book with great hope. Unfortunately what I saw appalled me. This book turns many of the principles of designing good information graphics on their head. If you have read Ed Tufte's books and appreciate his concepts of reducing "chart junk" this book will astound you in actually suggesting you dress up a graph with pretty background graphics and cute icons.Not only does this book present questionable aesthetic values, but even promotes the creation of misleading diagrams. One example is the suggestion to just make a 90 degree turn with a bar on a bar chart if that one doesn't fit conveniently.There are so many bad examples in this book that it is almost useful as a guide for what NOT to do when designing charts and diagrams.

Well, we all make mistakes - at least it is pretty in parts. A good guide to whether a restaurant chef can actually cook is to order an omelette simple - if it's on your table within a couple of minutes, the chef probably knows what he/she is doing. In the field of statistical graphics, finding out what the author thinks about pie charts is usually a good indicator - in this case, Mr Bounford seems to think they're a good idea, and he even thinks it's a good idea to add some chart junk, distort the information by rotation or to use fake 3D effects, use multiple colours and so on.I guess a second indicator of quality is to check the index - has this man even read Tufte, Cleveland, Wainer? - it appears not.This book is appalling!If you like colouring-in with crayons, but need some guidelines, this is probably the book for you. Actually, if you are looking for new and interesting (read "brightly coloured") ways of mis-representing your data, or for transforming data into mis-information, again, this may be the book for you. Mr Bounford has invented some distortions that have not occurred to me even in my statistical nightmares!I am, however, keeping my copy - it's a great teaching aid - on what not to do!

A visually appealing book that shows off many digital effects and possible ways of creating digital diagrams. Whether or not you should do some of the things shown is another matter.This book is not for the serious Information Architect - but may be useful for a designer or graphic artist.Read Tufte and Wainer first - but then you won't find much new or useful here.