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.