References
The bolded entries with an asterisk (*) are the classics — in my opinion the canonical works on the topic. The rest are on the theme but to varying degrees.
- 1960The Image of the City Kevin Lynch
- 1979Notation as a Tool of Thought (Turing Lecture) Kenneth Iverson
- 1983The Visual Display of Quantitative Information Edward Tufte
- 1998Seeing Like a State * James C. Scott
- 2002Succinctness is Power Paul Graham
- 2006Magic Ink Bret Victor
- 2010A Big Little Idea Called Legibility * Venkatesh Rao
- 2011On Being an Illegible Person Venkatesh Rao
- 2011Up and Down the Ladder of Abstraction Bret Victor
- 2011Kill Math Bret Victor
- 2012Learnable Programming Bret Victor
- 2013Media for Thinking the Unthinkable Bret Victor
- 2014The Humane Representation of Thought Bret Victor
- 2015The /now Page Movement Derek Sivers
- 2017
- 2017Book Review: Seeing Like a State Scott Alexander
- 2018Learn in Public swyx
- 2020Two Concepts of Legibility Zach Tellman
- 2022Date Me Directory Steve Krouse
- 2022A blog post is a very long search query * Henrik Karlsson
- 2022Live Your Best Life With Structured Events Charity Majors
- 2023Looking for Alice Henrik Karlsson
- 2024Breadcrumbs Simon Sarris
- 2024Everyone is wrong about that Slack flowchart Sophie Alpert
- 2025
- 2025Personal Investor Relations Steve Krouse
- 2025Legibility Explained (by People Who Don't Hate Legibility) * swyx, Steve, Henrik
- 2026Word of the Day, Bracket City James Somers
- 2026Legibility is Ruining You Jimmy Miller
- 2026
- 2026Advice to college students in 2026 Steve Krouse
- 2026