"It is often with impotent exasperation that a person having the knowledge sees some fallacious conclusion accepted, or some wrong policy adopted, just because known facts cannot be marshalled and presented in such manner as to be effective."
This is the conclusion phrase from the first paragraph of Willard C Brinton's "Graphic Methods for Presenting Facts", in which the author expresses his disappointment about the impossibility of bridging the important gap existing between data collection and presentation on side, and the decision-making on the other. Despite being written more than a century ago (1915), the issue seems to be so actual, the average data professional probably met this kind of situation at least once in a lifetime, if not on a regular basis.
I found out about this book from Bridget Cogley & Vidya Setlur's "Functional Aesthetics for Data Visualization" (2020), which credits Brinton for "shaping the path toward broad use of charts". I found a digitized copy of the book at Internet Archive and browsing though it I found it appealing for a deeper reading and a first review.
Written in a simple style stripped of any mathematical or statistical formulae, and thus approachable by the average nontechnical reader, the book addresses the techniques and challenges of graphical authors in preparing charts and other graphical content for their consumption in organizations for insight and decision-making, as well for the masses. It mentions also the projecting of graphs as lantern slides to accompany a talk, a precursor of nowadays' forms of presentations.
The engineering and statistical background of the author can be seen in the meticulosity with which the book was written. The book discusses the graphic methods for presenting facts in graphical form, which are the component parts and how can be used to attract readers' attention, respectively present them in an effective manner. Several principle-like statements are considered though the book and listed together in the last chapters, rules that can be found in modern books as well, though probably less exemplified.
From organization charts to maps, from circle and bar charts to time plots, the number and variety of graphical displays is overwhelming and at the same time surprising for a book that old, especially when we consider the publishing technologies available. As mentioned by the author, color printing of the book was prohibitive given the costs, only one ink color being used. However, this doesn't diminish the quality of visuals considered. Compared with nowadays' books, which seem to attempt compensating the lack of novelty with too much color and mentions of technologies, book's graphics stand out in their simplicity and richness of exemplifications. It is sad to remark that the graphical displays are better chosen and the book is better written than some of nowadays books on data visualization.
Comparing the language and vocabulary used nowadays with the one used then, the reader can see the difficulties of approaching a subject found in its early years, the author recognizing the lack of standards and the difficulties of showing quantitative facts in true proportions. It's also true that more modern authors like Tufte or Cleveland were facing same challenge 70 years later.
About the author is worth mentioning that he was chairman of the "Joint Committee on Standards for Graphic Presentation" initiated in 1913, committee that published in 1915 their first brief report which consisted of 17 simply basic rules, a first attempt of standardizing the principles of graphic presentation. In 1939 Brinton published a second book on "Graphic Presentation", with less text and abundant colorful graphical displays. Even if some charts are available in the second book as well, overall, the two books seem to complement each other and should be a lecture for the data professional as well for the average reader interested in understanding the use of graphical methods.
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References:
[1] Willard C Brinton, "Graphic Methods for Presenting Facts", 1919 (link)
[2] Bridget Cogley & Vidya Setlur, "Functional Aesthetics for Data Visualization" (2020)
[3] Willard C Brinton, "Graphic Presentation", 1939 (link)
[4] Joint Committee on Standards for Graphic Presentation, "Publications of the American Statistical Association" Vol.14 (112), 1915 (Jstor)
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