I’ve been waiting for what feels like a long time to get my hands on Stephen Few’s new book, Now You See It: Simple Visualization Techniques for Quantitative Analysis. At first glance, this book is not going to disappoint. The book is a well-designed 320 page book that systematically lays out components and best practices in laying out visualizations that communicates the information within data. The book is divided into 3 parts:

1. Building Core Skills for Visual Analysis. This section looks like a systematic approach to laying the foundation for producing effective visualizations. What has caught my eye so far are the skills that analysts should develop and traits of meaningful data. There is also a large section on how visual perception works.
2. Honing Skills for Diverse Types of Visual Analysis. This is a 150 page section that goes through effective presentation of the basic types of visual display methods.
   • Time-Series Analysis
   • Part-To-Whole and Ranking Analysis
   • Deviation Analysis
   • Distribution Analysis
   • Correlation Analysis
   • Multivariate Analysis
3. Further Thoughts and Hopes. This section talks about promising trends in information visualization.

It looks like a great read. A must for all of us into informational visualization.

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