Better is subjective though and related to what you're trying to do. A lot of past research was about efficiency of information transfer. There's more recent research looking at memorability. In one report, different graphics could have both goals.
There's plenty more. Stanford Vis group is a fun place to check from time to time: http://vis.stanford.edu/ Heer specifically has a range of papers and some online slides for a vis course he taught http://homes.cs.washington.edu/~jheer/ (uses Tufte for the course text)
I'm drawing a blank on a few others I find informative...
Unfortunately, I don't have any about fonts but I'm sure there are plenty out there.
Either way, between Cleveland, Robins, Few, and Ware there're tons of studies and references:
http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/ms/departments/sia/wsc/index.html
http://www.researchgate.net/researcher/2028337238_Naomi_B_Ro...
http://www.perceptualedge.com/library.php
http://www.amazon.ca/Visual-Thinking-Design-Colin-Ware/dp/01...
Better is subjective though and related to what you're trying to do. A lot of past research was about efficiency of information transfer. There's more recent research looking at memorability. In one report, different graphics could have both goals.
There's a "Useful Junk" paper delving into that topic. There's a link to it in Few's reply: http://www.perceptualedge.com/articles/visual_business_intel...
There's plenty more. Stanford Vis group is a fun place to check from time to time: http://vis.stanford.edu/ Heer specifically has a range of papers and some online slides for a vis course he taught http://homes.cs.washington.edu/~jheer/ (uses Tufte for the course text)
I'm drawing a blank on a few others I find informative...
Unfortunately, I don't have any about fonts but I'm sure there are plenty out there.