Show Me the Numbers: Designing Tables and Graphs to Enlighten
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Most presentations of quantitative information are poorly designed—painfully so, often to the point of misinformation. This problem, however, is rarely noticed and even more rarely addressed. We use tables and graphs to communicate quantitative information: the critical numbers that measure the health, identify the opportunities, and forecast the future of our organizations. Even the best information is useless, however, if its story is poorly told. This problem exists because almost no one has ever been trained to design tables and graphs for effective and efficient communication. Show Me the Numbers: Designing Tables and Graphs to Enlighten is the most accessible, practical, and comprehensive guide to table and graph design available.
The second edition of Show Me the Numbers improves on the first by polishing the content throughout (including updated figures) and adding 91 more pages of content, including: 1) A new preface; 2) A new chapter entitled “Silly Graphs That Are Best Forsaken,” which alerts readers to some of the current misuses of graphs such as donut charts, circle charts, unit charts, and funnel charts; 3) A new chapter about quantitative narrative entitled “Telling Compelling Stories with Numbers”; and 4) New appendices entitled “Constructing Table Lens Displays in Excel,” “Constructing Box Plots in Excel,” and “Useful Color Palettes.”
83 reviews for Show Me the Numbers: Designing Tables and Graphs to Enlighten
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Cynthia M. Howson –
Show Me the Numbers is a must read for all BI professionals charged with designing reports, dashboards, and communicating insights from data. He starts with the basics on how our brains sift through images, what we focus on, what distracts us, and why. There is a nice primer on different statistics, when to use a tabular data set versus a graph, and which charts are most effective for particular analyses. Unlike many technical books on the market today, Few also has produced a high quality, colorful book that also would make a great gift!
Cindi Howson,
Successful Business Intelligence: Secrets to Making BI a Killer App
Math customer –
This is a great desk resource for people that are in business intelligence, data visualization or dashboard design that work with tools like excel, tableau or microstrategy. This is one of my favs – even before you buy Tufte books, get this for a practical foundation in data design. It’s the textbook to the class I wish I took.
Stacey Barr –
Okay, I’ll admit that I haven’t read “Show Me The Numbers” from cover to cover, even though I’ve owned a copy (a signed copy!) for a few years. But it’s not the kind of book that requires this to get the value from it.
My field is organisational performance measurement, and I’ve seen countless examples of performance reports that truly suck. They are ugly, they are cumbersome, the data is misrepresented and awkwardly displayed. It’s near impossible to draw conclusions, and even more impossible to draw valid conclusions about what performance is doing, and why. How can you make wise business decisions with information fodder so poor?
So Stephen’s book is a gold mine of sensible statistical basics to help us all – novices and experienced practitioners alike – to improve the way we design and use tables and graphs to highlight relationships and patterns in data like comparisons, trends and correlations.
One of my favourite parts of the book is in chapter 7, “General Design for Communication”, where Stephen lays out a wonderful framework for how text can be used to assist tables and graphs to tell the story of the data. This framework is a wonderful checklist for how to design the content of a performance report that can highlight, interpret, explain and recommend responses to signals in our performance measures.
GJK –
Very nicely done book with good examples of data presentation. Helpful section on different ineffective graph styles and how and why to avoid them. Great as a reference and as a source of ongoing inspiration.
Louis Witte –
This book begins at the principles of perception and guides you towards the goal of presenting the valuable meaningful information that’s hidden within bulks of data along a path of understanding. For me as information professional at a government agency this book helps to reach the next level of professional performance.
Galen Menzel –
Stephen Few has a rare talent for explaining apparently opaque concepts in simple terms, but without simplifying the subject. This book starts from the *very* beginning and provides the reader with a solid understanding of the basics of chart design, including when to use a table vs a graph, what types of tables and graphs to use for what kinds of data, and why certain graphical features are more effective than others. Throughout, Few maintains a plain, readable writing style that is never patronizing even when spelling out seemingly obvious points (e.g., use a table if you need to look up a specific value). His patient tone and simple presentation end up guiding you through some unexpectedly sophisticated waters of design almost without your even realizing you’ve gone anywhere.
In addition to the design coverage, Few covers some (very) basic statisics, how to adjust for inflation, rgb values of a nice selection of colors to use in graphs, how to make box graphs in Excel, and many other workaday details that make the book immediately useful. Most of the charts in the book are made in Excel, showing that you don’t need advanced design software to make attractive, clear charts.
The book itself is a beautiful large hardback. This is the source of my one complaint: its large size makes it somewhat difficult to just pop off the shelf and flip through to find something.
If you want to learn how to design good tables and graphs, get it.
Tongyu Anju –
Although most of those are not new to me, it put them together for easy referring. I went through this book within one day and found it is very helpful.
Samir Damle –
I work at a big data analytics company and this book is serving as a very good guide for creating meaningful charts that actually help in –
[1] learning the most important takeaways from the charts
[2] making decisions based on data
This book opens your eyes to learn how to create a truly useful chart instead of presenting data merely for eye candy. Thanks Stephen Few!
Hans Wesselingh –
It has been a pleasure to work through this book. Even this 75-year old professional learned a few tricks on making better tables and graphs. On how to show the important data – and no more. On how to convince your readers.
Ken Wells –
I’m thumbing through and I’m impressed with the down-to-earth explanations of what to do. And what NOT to do. Good stuff. It’s a keeper. But intimidating size. 🙂
Xavier Corominas –
Es muy complciado hacer que la presentaciones de datos númericos sean atractivas para los que la reciben.
Además te da pautas para que las presentaciones numéricas tengan lo necesario, sin aañadir información que no aporta nada
Marat Gubaev –
This book is a real masterpiece. On every page I felt the author did his best to give me the very useful information.
Moreover I received all this information in a best way for perception.
Mr. P. Nagpal –
I have never read a book of this size in one sitting. Frankly, I started a bit slow but then found myself not being able to put the book down. Four hours later! I have read the entire book.
This is great. The language is simple, clear and crisp. The explanations make total sense. To make a subject such as tables and graphs interesting is difficult at the best of times but Mr Few has done it. I have learnt a hell of a lot such as geospatial considerations, box plots (never heard of them before), perception of visual display etc etc etc.
Normally, I consider a book great if I learn just one thing from it but I have learnt such a lot from this book. To supplement this, I suggest that one also reads ‘How to make an impact’ by Jon Moon.
stefan e –
neben einem fundierten ausflug in die theorie der visuelle wahrnehmung werden in diesem buch sowohl theorie als auch praxis von tabellen und grafiken sehr gut beschrieben. wertvoll für alle die (täglichen) umgang mit grafiken und/oder tabellen haben – unabhängig von fachrichtung oder niveau.
für wirtschaftler, techniker, sozialwissenschafter und auch als solide grundlage für leute mit interesse in informations- und datenvisualisierung bestens geeignet!
Martin Fierro –
A detailed and thoughtful treatment of how information can be presented to inform and persuade. Too often we tend to think if we own a program that creates the tables, or graphic illustrations, we have “got it.” This work not only argues persuasively that there is much more to understand than how to use Excel, but also shows the principles, needed to do that most basic of all human skills-to communicate.
Dallas Marks –
Math
Jeremey Donovan –
Fact based decision making is the norm in business today. However, to drive fact-based decisions, executives need to be able to tell persuasive stories using data. This book is THE go-to resource for designing easy and elegant tables and graphs. It is for business presentations what Garr Reynolds’ Presentation Zen is to TED Talks and keynotes.
Despite having the heft of a textbook or coffee table book, this book is a fast, fun, and visual read. The author clearly had fun writing it and I appreciated that he expressed strong opinions about the dos and don’ts of business presentation design. All recommendations are supported by compelling before & after graphics.
Finally, I appreciated the author’s references to the designers that came before him. He translated the artful Edward Tufte into practical business application and he modernized the McKinsey-esque insights of Gene Zelazny.
If you read the book cover to cover as I did, then you will notice a very small degree of redundancy. However, I suspect most readers will use this as a reference guide in which case those refreshers are extremely helpful.
TheLion© –
Stephen Few’s books are like Hershey’s candy – a lot of variety, but basically it’s just more chocolate. This book delves deeper into his ideology on enlightening through meaningful visualization design, just like the rest of his books. That being said, this book is still an excellent reference.
mariusz –
This book is a great source of a practical knowledge for everyone who designs information. I’m a UX designer and this book help me prepare better tables and graphs, not only draw nice ones but also think about information in analytical way.
Marcelo Navarro –
This book is fully supporting me in my studies. An excellent purchase, for in Brazil is difficult to find literature that quality.
Yosef Waysman –
The book covers the entire topic of data visualization (not to be confused with the overly cute but rarely useful “inforgraphics”) end to end, from understanding basic useful statistics, to showing which data presentation method to choose (table or graphs and which type), to adjusting each of the attributes to tell the story you want to tell. A must (and possibly only) read for anyone who’s dealing with communicating information.
Rico Lux –
Knowledge needed for every BI consultant. How should we present the data in such a way that it helps our clients
NateDogg –
As a professional who often has to display data in innovative and engaging ways, I find this book invaluable.
Martin Christian Rannje –
The book was of excellent quality and I received it in time. Nothing particular to complain about. So why does the browser keep telling me I need to write more words?
Mrs D M Harris –
Really good clear book , excellent for anyone thinking about presenting numbers
AAG –
This has been a great source of ideas and inspiration for staff in our Institutional Research department at a western research university. It has helped us design charts and graphs that convey information quickly and accurately to faculty and administrators oftentimes overwhelmed with data that are indecipherable.
Charles Rink –
Superb book that gives practical, sensible advice instead of unusual and pretty charts for unusual cases. Is up-to-date and relevant to modern tools and practices. Used this as the basis for training at my work.
K. A. Harman –
Best book of its genre.
Patrick Hook –
This book changed the way I view and present data.
AmazingJHC –
If you are truly interested in presenting data in easy to understand ways, this book is great
M.Ellington –
Find this book easier to use than any of Tuft’s and he also shows you how to recreate the charts in Excel. Used it to wow the social scientist I wrote for as I learned how to present her data in visually more accessible formats for her presentations to stake holders and the public.
Bob –
Very elaborate, detailed book
Rafael Costa –
Very useful!
Jared D. –
Tufte is theory and Few translates that theory into practical and pragmatic techniques. great book.
J. S. –
My husband loves it!!!
Barry Steel –
Clear and to the point just what I need to get my head around my figures
Mike C in San Jose –
Few ranks right there with Tufte (I hope neither gets bothered by my saying this 🙂 as the most influential contemporaryt information viz thinkers. This book is a pleasure to hold (echoes of Tufte’s books?) and peruse, and has Few’s typical penetrating insights and clarity. Great source and great read.
Tejas –
I had a light-bulb moment after I read this book. I knew straight away that if I applied this knowledge to my works, I will reach closer to my goals.
As I read through the chapters, the epiphanies felt like pop corns popping in my head. I knew how to gather data and make it analytics ready pretty well, but not how to present it. This book taught me the design skills to display data graphically using tables and charts.
Friedemann JK Huettner –
Loved it excellent reference guide
Nirmeen –
Excellent Book
KrystianO –
Fanastic book… if its your thing or a job, to visually present data. It is nicely printed with solid, grey hardcover.
John Ciprus –
Excellent discussion and review of the presentation of numerical data. Definitely an inspiration for future data depiction.
Pussycat –
Was a present for family member.
Xerxes –
I’m responsible for initial onboarding for Data Scientists in my company. I have been looking for a book to assist with teaching them principles of information presentation. Our company has a bunch of Tufte books and initially, I tried using them – with little success. Tufte is great, but not for teaching principles in a systematic way. Stephen does a great job of presenting the principles behind good information presentation. The exercises he includes in the book are great for promoting discussions. If there’s a better book for teaching the basics, please let me know. Until then, this one is working great.
Steve B –
I have been a fan of techniques for improving visual information and information design starting with the Tufte book in 1983. Stephen Few has provided analysts, planners, and other people responsible for turning data into information a great service with this book. With technical books it can sometimes be difficult for the enthusiasm of the author to shine through. It is clear that Mr. Few is passionate about information design. Unlike other some books in the field this comprehensive study is practical as well – everything is presented using tools available in Microsoft Excel. Users are able to immediately relate the information in the book to the ability residing in their desktop. Some of the book would be easy to dismiss as basic information. I thought to skip around but there were surprising gems in the first few chapters where background information is described. If you have only one book on visualizing data, this would be the one to purchase.
ajith –
The book was delivered in good condition and in time.
The book gives you very simple tips to better the graphs and tables you design. Though simple, the tips are illuminating. The book is well written with many examples.
Mike Jones –
This book is well written. From the introduction to the closing chapter. I’ve not completed all the readings, but his other book is consistent. It is a great book. Show me the Numbers is a basic understanding of graphs and how to present them. It’s not about the latest trends. It’s about showing you what works and how to present that information. In a well thought out manner using information that attracts the brain to pull data from charts, graphs, and tables. And if you think you can write a better book, please do! And invite me to read it. Otherwise, Stephen Few has solid books available on the market. That not only go into the designing elements, but also the psychological side of things and what attracts the readers brain to understanding. It’s worth the price.
UPDATE: This book has dropped in price. I purchased it when it was valued at the $48 mark. Now, it’s even cheaper. I’m not even complaining about missing out on the lower price. It was a deal then; and now, it’s a steal.
Dag –
If you make charts and have some time you should read this. So many great design principles. I took my entire team through this book!
gf –
At first I loved this book. I felt like I was getting the hard fast rules of Data Viz in no uncertain terms. About 2/3 of the way through I hated this book. I felt like I was only getting rules of Data Viz. About 3/4 of the way through, I loved this book. I felt like I had learned the rules, so now I can break them on purpose and be able to explain the reason why.
Thank you, Stephen Few for all of your guidance and input, you make the community of Data Viz a better place.
graywar3 –
one of the best books i have read- a final note to the gray book reviewers- this is a great book, and “i don’t care” what you are trying to show me, this book, show me the numbers rocks- i don’t buy the “i made a mistake” in reading this book- i am where i am in reading this book “permanently”- show me the numbers is a great book- show me whatever- but “i don’t care” and i’m “not afraid” to show this book to others- if this is such a great book, why can’t you eliminate me??? so much power right??? why then, 23 books later, this book still stands- “i don’t care what you show me” – show me the numbers rocks- see yat dawn with this great book- auto measures for all- thx- buy this- time is a terrible thing to waste, so read good books like this with your time- 70!!
Rshiel –
Book was brand new still in the plastic packaging and just what I needed for class.
customer –
This is a beautifully designed, easy-to-understand book that you could sit down and read straight through, or use as a textbook (it has lots of exercises), or as a reference book (very thorough and well organized). I borrowed it from the library and liked it so much I got my own copy. The examples are taken from the business world, but the principles apply equally to other kinds of writing. (I’m an editor working primarily on academic texts, and I’d recommend it unhesitatingly to clients or colleagues.) The style is engaging. The examples are easy to follow. The layout is just gorgeous. A keeper!
Michael McGurk –
Good reference book
MTT –
helpful
joao –
Easy to read with a lot of practical information and tons of useful tips.
Paul D –
Informative book on data presentation; written with clarity.
If you have to communicate data through reports or presentations this book is worth reading.
Bridgette Peterson –
So far so good…
Srinivasa Puranam –
Good book with clear illustrations about good and bad visualizations. Great buy!
HealthDataViz –
We provide training courses on the best practices of data visualization and provide this book to all participants in our course. This book is an exceptional resource for anyone trying to up their game in displaying data in a manner that clear, compelling, and correct.
Andrew Leverkuhn –
Few walks his talk. This is now my go-to guide for figures and tables. The book itself exemplifies the very ideas he is conveying.
I purchased this as a textbook for an organizational communication class and now question the efficacy of such a class that does not make use of this book.
Jack Rudd –
Magnificent. I wish I could afford to see him live. I’m a self taught analyst now with certifications for SQL, Excel vba, SharePoint and k2 for SharePoint but the “Analytics” is much harder to find information about. This covers enough on its own to get you started.
Math Customer –
Exactly the kind of detailed explanations and examples I was expecting.
clRose –
I am a Graphic Designer, and I have been increasingly interested in creating Infographics. This book has been so helpful in understanding the analytical and numerical side of infographics, in a very thorough and organized way. This is now my go-to book when I start an infographic project.
Cliente de Math –
Excelente libro muy bueno para iniciar con el análisis de la información y la presentación de esta!! Me gusto mucho
E_D –
Great deep dive into visualizations. It’s a text book, but one that easy to understand.
C. W. Hill –
This is a fantastic read and I would say essential foundation for anyone creating reports, Finance/BI/Sales/Marketing etc Brilliant !
Tons of real life examples of bad reporting and how to do it in a clear concise, informative way, and factors to make the look totally engaging.
Terje Theiss –
Read this to understand data presentation – it will brodden your knowledge, and give a better understanding of how to present data.
Janice –
Great book. A must read for anyone who prepares data/statistcs based presentations.
Cathi Ki –
This is my favorite Data Viz book, everything I need
Don H. –
Informative.
Tired Dad –
I must have a dozen books on data visualisation. I use the skill all the time for my work in financial analysis and management. I train junior team members (accountants and analysts) in data viz and make them buy this book. This is my top pick out of everything I’ve read on the topic. It takes the classical authors in the subject (e.g. Tufte) and builds on their insights. It covers everything you need to know from the basics of the art/ craft to the more outlandish and creative elements. It is amazingly non-boring. Just get it!
Math Kunde –
Wunderbar prägnant von einem Vollprofi geschrieben und mit aussagekräftigen Beispielen versehen. Dicke Empfehlung.
Colin Johnson –
Elaine H. –
Good product; good service
natcaste –
This books helps to understand the basics of data visualization, it also provides exercises and lots of examples.
Math Customer –
Very clear and usefull information.
Dorian Martinez Conde –
Excelente articulo
deepak s fernandes –
This book gives you the basics and advanced ways of creating compelling reports and insightful visuals
Alex Koo –
Math Customer –
Great purchase. If you are starting to get involved with data visualisation and you have no previous or reduced knowlage on data visualisation, this book is for you. It starts from something as basic as describing the type of data you can have till which graphs or tables could be better to communicate these data. However, no matter even if you have an advanced knowlage in data visualisation, this book will help you to understand things you usually do and even you can get a few tips more.The book is so easy to read. Even the stadistical explanations he provides are simple but accurate, providing the relevant knowledge you require. Also, it is really fun and interesting to read. It could look like a really technical book, but definitely it could be something you can sit in your garden, read and chill.If you think that you would require a mot advanced book but that approach the same knowlage, his book Now You See It is for you.Warning: this book is practical form the point of view that you learn to identify the best graphs for specific data, when you should use them, then using a table is preferable, how to use the colours in a graph etc. You develop a critical knowledge to identify if a graph is good or not and how could be improved. However, if you are expecting that he explains you how to do these graphs in excel or in other program, this is not the book you are looking for. Yet, it gives you a recommended reading appendix when you can find what you are looking for depending of your interests.
Alessio –
Il libro è un MUST HAVE per chi ha a che fare con la rappresentazione grafica dei dati e delle informazioni che questi devono fornire.
Few è un maestro nell’impostare il modo di ragionare migliore: poi bisogna comunque soffrí.
Ho anche un altro titolo del Dottor Few è questo qui chiude un ciclo (forse) iniziato per me con molto entusiasmo.
William –
Highly recommend
Leo Tolsey –
I have just started reading the book and I really like how Stephen Few explains the plotting process: in a concise and effective manner. Based on what I have read and seen in the book until now, I can say that I am pleased of purchasing this book, and, therefore, I give A++ to the book and its author.