Information Visualization: Perception for Design

by Colin Ware

"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.

Genres: Design, Nonfiction, Science, Reference, Business, Research, Technical

512 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2000

Reviews

[Eric Foll · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don't go into this book thinking it'll be a light read. It's definitely a textbook, but a very easy-to-read one. Dense, yes. But understandable and relevant. If your job entails displaying information visually, this would be time well spent. While it does tend to favor the process of visualizations through computer graphics, most of the concepts are either directly applicable to the printed page or easily understood in that manner.

[Kornelis Sietsma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very wide ranging and detailed - this book covers the whole gamut from how our eyes and visual systems and brains process images, right through to the implications for how we can visualise information in computer systems most effectively.

As a non-expert in this field I found this a dense but really rewarding read - especially as it kept surprising me with new ideas and information about how we see the world! There were too many "wow, really?" moments for me to easily remember.

For instance, I had no idea that as well as colour blind people, there are a very small number of people who have four distinct colour cones in their eyes, allowing them to distinguish more colours than the vast majority who have three.

Just a note for readers - this is a foundational text - it lays a groundwork of information, I found it fascinating but it's less of a how-to guide than a "why you should approach visualisation in these ways" guide. I'm giving it five stars for how well it accomplishes it's aims - but it might not be the book for you if you just want to jump in and build data visualisations, or if you want a light easy read!

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every person that does anything with design, or computers, or communication, or graphics, or art should read this book. It is astounding in its excellent summaries and discussions of the key issues. If you only read one book, this is enough. But if not, it also provides you with plenty of jumping off points to refer to further studies.

Only 11 reviews??

[Manuel Frias · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to read this book because of the good feedback it got from authors I admire. I don't regret it but I should have noticed that it is a scientific academic textbook. Nothing wrong with that but it's not an easy read for novices in the science of visualization like me.

This is anyway a good book to find scientific explanations to perception and cognitive visualization problems.

[nylki · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a good read and overview if you are interested in the visual perception of humans and interpretation of symbols.
Also a nice addition, if you are researching on visual analytics and visualization.

[Dejan Ulcej · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book covers the information visualization very comprehensively, with an emphasis on the cognitive psychology. Dr. Ware supports the theory very well with interesting and relevant research studies (in 2013 version few examples that talk about HCI experiments are out-dated and are hardly relevant today). Despite the fact that the book covers everything one must know about information visualization, the structure of the book is complex. Reader needs to have at least very basic understanding of cognitive psychology, otherwise the content might be too hard to comprehend. I wouldn't recommend it for the beginners in information visualization field, but it definitely is a must read for everyone that wants to understand relevant theory of interdisciplinary field of information visualization.

[Hugo Rivera · Rating 5 out of 5]

Scientifically-rigorous and practical!

[Tore · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good overview, nice (and well-motivated) list of principles. I learned a lot about information visualization and human visual perception.

[Ietrio · Rating 1 out of 5]

academic dry text, ware throws in anything he could copy from other books, including diagrams of the eye and the optical nerve.

[Marc · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's good reason why people don't read textbooks cover to cover... And this is an incredibly well-researched and detailed textbook looking at the science behind information visualization. Lots of best-practice advice and plenty of detailed explanations. A little too dry and dispassionate for my tastes, but probably right on target for hardcore academics.

[Rob Greca · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great textbook on information visualization.

[Leo Alvarez · Rating 4 out of 5]

dense, but useful. one of the go-to viz books.

[Fabian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent reference for designing perceptually effective data visualization and User Interfaces. The chapter on perception of space will also be extremely valuable for people working on Virtual Reality.