Visualizing with Text: author’s copy and new content

I just received my author’s copy of Visualizing with Text this morning! It’s awesome to finally hold the book after 2 years of writing (and the start of this blog 7 years ago!):

Here’s the book with the nice glossy cover.

Flipping through triggers some memories, like finding this user study on charts from 1961 comparing labels vs. legends! (Can you BELIV that there were user studies 59 years ago, before VisWeek? see Sarbaugh et al: Comprehension of Graphs):

Label or legend? An experiment from 1961.

Or a larger effort specifically for the book is captured on this page. Since the book defines a design space for visualizing with text, I felt compelled to demonstrate the flexibility of the design space to create many different visualizations of one document: here’s 14 different visualizations of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland:

14 different visualizations of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

And, here’s a page on very different uses of visualizations (beyond using visualization for preattentive perception of patterns). On the left is a system diagram of a power grid (an inventory use that organizes all the assets in the grid, courtesy of ISO New England). Top right is an infographic by Nigel Holmes of a graph, where the edges are literal text implicating individuals (a communication use that distills days of testimony down to select statements, courtesy of Nigel):

Different uses of a visualizations.

“Preview” is now working on the CRC Press site, and “Look Inside” is now working on Amazon.