Series: Lists of Influences

Ever wondered where the successful visualization researchers take their ideas from? How they got to know all that stuff that they draw from? What made them work on a certain project? Well wonder no more. EagerEyes.org brings you twelve lists of books, articles, and other things that influenced twelve researchers who influence us.

I had a very interesting discussion about influential books with Pat Hanrahan at the Vis 2006 conference in Baltimore. Not long before that, I had seen an article about a book containing lists of influences by influential designers. Thus was born the idea to do the same thing for visualization.

I am going to ask a dozen people who are known in the field of visualization the same question:

Which 10 books, papers, websites, or objects had the most influence on your work, inspired you, or made you a better person?

The results will be posted at a rate of one per month over the course of 2007. The list is certainly biased towards the people I know better or whose work I find interesting. It is not restricted to Information Visualization people, though, and I am trying to cover a broad range of research interests.

This project has two goals: put together a really interesting reading list, and get to know the contributors better. I am in no way interested in the personality cult that exists in some other fields (notably mathematics with the Erdős number, or design with its superstars), and the goal of this project is really the opposite of that. All the visualization researchers I know are extremely friendly, interested, and approachable. By learning about what influences them, we get to know them better, and make this field more of a community.

The topic Lists of Influences shows you the growing list of lists of influential influences.

Posted by Robert Kosara on January 3, 2007. Filed under influences.