Data Insights: New Ways to Visualize and Make Sense of Data

by Hunter Whitney

Data Insights: New Ways to Visualize and Make Sense of Data offers thought-provoking insights into how visualization can foster a clearer and more comprehensive understanding of data. The book offers perspectives from people with different backgrounds, including data scientists, statisticians, painters, and writers. It argues that all data is useless, or misleading, if we do not know what it means.

Organized into seven chapters, the book explores some of the ways that data visualization and other emerging approaches can make data meaningful and therefore useful. It also discusses some fundamental ideas and basic questions in the data lifecycle; the process of interactions between people, data, and displays that lead to better questions and more useful answers; and the fundamentals, origins, and purposes of the basic building blocks that are used in data visualization. The reader is introduced to tried and true approaches to understanding users in the context of user interface design, how communications can get distorted, and how data visualization is related to thinking machines. Finally, the book looks at the future of data visualization by assessing its strengths and weaknesses. Case studies from business analytics, healthcare, network monitoring, security, and games, among others, as well as illustrations, thought-provoking quotes, and real-world examples are included.

This book will prove useful to computer professionals, technical marketing professionals, content strategists, Web and product designers, and researchers.

310 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Hunter Whitney is a User Experience (UX) Designer who has helped create useful and usable interface designs for clients in areas ranging from bioscience and medicine to information technology and marine biology.

In addition to his UX work, he is the author of the book "Data Insights: New Ways to Visualize and Make Sense of Data" (Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, November 2012). He has written numerous articles about a range of subjects, including data visualization, for various online and print publications. His aim is to encourage conversations among people with diverse skills and perspectives about presenting data in ways that are more widely accessible and engaging.

He received dual bachelor's degrees--one in English Literature from UCLA and the other in Biology from UCSC--and has completed post-graduate neuropsychology research at UCLA. The combination of these multidisciplinary studies reflects his longstanding interest in the intersection between the humanities and the sciences.

Reviews

[Ahmed AbdelKhalek · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book and I can say that it's not a normal data visualization book. it's different and opens your eyes to different perspectives other than graphs.

[Jiwon Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good read but not exceptional in my opinion.

[Dave · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are gems here, but they're hidden among superfluous words and pictures. It's unstructured, scattered, more a many-sided conversation than a strong point of view on wrangling data and wringing out insight. The principles espoused are introduced by example and analogy without strong theoretical underpinnings.

Despite the subtitle, few concrete, new ways to visualize or make sense of data are presented. But as an added bonus, QR codes are sprinkled throughout.

[Jac · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't finish this, got about halfway through. It felt like it was more a collection of images and ideas that could be used as inspiration than a comprehensive overview with any structure - interesting, but not what I was looking for.