yes the written content is full of great information, and is highly acclaimed. However the vast majority of the images used in this book are nearly unreadable due to the extremely poor reproduction quality and low image resolution. This leads me to wonder whether the book was printed at kinkos or printed from the high school's 150 dpi printer!

i've seen photocopies that looked better than this! i'm not kidding!

come on.. black text on dark grey background?

were these conscious design decisions?

note... the 1 star is to bring down the average. i bought the book due to the perfect record of all 5 stars, however i don't believe a book on design topics should get away with such horrid imagery for the price..

2 of the 3 authors for this book are from xerox... i wouldn't doubt they used thier own xerox machine to reproduce the graphic designs found within the pages inside the cover.

37 of 44 found the following review helpful:


INDISPENSIBLE SURVEY OF THE FRONTIERS OF INFOVIZ  Jan 11, 2000 By Robert E. Horn
Stuart Card, Jock Mackinlay, and Ben Shneiderman, all extraordinary leaders in creating and researching the field on human-computer interface design, have pooled their editorial judgment to create a comprehensive, and much-needed collection of pioneering articles on information visualization. They have produced remarkable survey of such topics as context, mapping, spatial metaphors, interaction, navigation, and visual tools.

680 pages! 47 articles! Filled with excellent choices of research and invention woven together with incisive summaries of the widely disparate, individual software accomplishments of the leaders of the field from around the world. This indispensable collection not only provides in-depth solutions to specific problems but also shows the explorer where the current frontiers are.

A rich, solid, impressive, and welcome contribution to a field that affects all of our lives now that the interactive graphic computer has made all of us users of visual language. Altogether indispensable for the researcher and innovator who will return to this remarkable collection again and again.

--Robert E. Horn, author, "Visual Language: Global Communication for the 21st Century" and visiting scholar, Program on People, Computers and Design, The Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University.

20 of 23 found the following review helpful:


I wish it had been available for purchase three years ago  Jan 04, 2001 By kent dahlgren
If I would have been able to buy what basically amounts to a near comprehensive gathering of exactly the kind of research I've spent the past three years trying to find....I'd be a happer man with far more hair on my head.

Caveat: you gotta be the kind of person who likes reading this sort of thing. I love reading RFC's so its way up my alley. If you are looking for a Reader's Digest version of how to develop interfaces for complex systems you won't find it here.

But if you are one who seeks to augment your own personal toolbox with the findings of those far more wise than yourself, get out your wallet and buy this book. Its great.

8 of 10 found the following review helpful:


An excellent collection with great chapter overviews  Feb 18, 1999
This is an excellent reference to the field. It brings together many of the classic papers published over the last 10 years or so. The editors provide a terrific overview and introduction to each of the chapters. These overviews alone would make a good book. Together with the collected papers, it is a welcome addition to my library.

14 of 31 found the following review helpful:


We must learn to challenge icons.  Feb 27, 1999 By Brian Hayes "brianhayes"
This book enters our sensibilites.

We must learn to challenge our vulnerability toward icons. In order to take our place in the upcoming era, we must recognize how many burdens we have carried because we have reacted to iconography --a phenomena far deeper than mere affection toward slogans and images. A healthy human intelligence is adaptive not reactive. We must recognize the terrible demand upon us to develop a serious forethought.

The approach and language of this book stimulates our desire to develop appropriate tools and poo-poos the fashions of populism --a phenomena at its worst in current computing circles!

We're being drawn into using the computer for JUNK. This book asks us to grow up. Great idea!