The Big Picture: How to Use Data Visualization to Make Better Decisions―Faster

270 Pages·2021·13.053 MB·English

by  Wexler, Steve

PRAISE FOR

AND STEVE WEXLER
You need a license to drive a car, and you should be required to read this book before
you use a chart, a graph, or a table in a presentation. It’s fun, clear, and useful. Num-
bers and words are not enough, it’s time we got smart about communicating data.
—SETH GODIN, author of This Is Marketing
Steve Wexler’s graphs are vivid, funny, practical, and highly informative—and so is
this book.
—TIM HARFORD, bestselling author of
The Undercover Economist and The Data Detective
Steve Wexler has done for data visualization what Dale Carnegie did for the art of
making friends and influencing people, and Strunk and White did for writing. The Big
Picture helps professionals at every level of an organization master the fundamentals
and develop better “maps” that lead to better strategies.
—JOHN C. PITTENGER, former SVP of
Corporate Strategy for Koch Industries, Inc.
You need this book. Data visualization is the key to sifting through the onslaught of
numbers in our professional lives, and Steve Wexler gives incisive, practical advice
on how to derive deeper insight and understanding from data more quickly. With his
infectious love of making data accessible, Wexler enables us to see things differently,
inspiring us to ask even better questions.
—JON COHEN, Chief Research Officer of SurveyMonkey
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Every business leader will benefit from the wisdom in this book. The Big Picture is an
essential guide that shortens the time it takes to come to a deeper understanding of
your data. Leveraging visuals that truly illuminate insights—and avoid misleading
representations—helps organizations be more agile in their decision-making. Every
business leader I know wants to make better decisions faster. This invaluable tool will
get you there.
—KENDALL CROLIUS, President of G100 Next Generation Leadership
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then The Big Picture is worth a million dollars.
It will enable business leaders to see patterns in data with the least amount of effort,
uncovering opportunities and galvanizing action. Indispensable!
—BRAD EPSTEIN, Chief Marketing Officer of Precision Medicine Group
Steve Wexler’s passion for reducing the time to the actionable insights is inspiring,
and I came away with new tools to transform data into intelligence and impact. The
Big Picture is a quick read, and Wexler doesn’t get bogged down in theory, but instead
uses his arsenal of real-life examples to illustrate his points. I will be sharing this book
and its many lessons with my entire organization!
—MOLLY SCHMIED, Chief Analytics Officer at
the Office of Advancement of The Ohio State University
Illustrated with a vast array of examples and real-world case studies, The Big Picture
is a practical primer on data visualization designed to help business professionals
achieve a clearer comprehension of dashboards and graphs—and how to use them
to change minds. Steve Wexler’s smart and humorous approach makes for an enlight-
ening and entertaining read.
—COLE NUSSBAUMER KNAFLIC, founder and CEO of
storytellingwithdata.com and bestselling author of Storytelling with Data
Data analytics is becoming ubiquitous—but to truly be data driven, businesses must
embrace a data culture in which analytics are used democratically and holistically.
The Big Picture offers essential data literacy lessons necessary for informed, intelligent
conversations about data.
—ADAM SELIPSKY, President and CEO of Tableau
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NEW YORK  CHICAGO  SAN FRANCISCO  ATHENS  LONDON
MADRID  MEXICO CITY  MILAN  NEW DELHI
SINGAPORE  SYDNEY  TORONTO
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Copyright © 2021 by Data Revelations, LLC. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act
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ISBN: 978-1-26-047353-7
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To the data visualization community—
for its never-ending generosity and encouragement
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CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION ix
CHAPTER 1
WHY NUMBERS ARE NOT ENOUGH 1
CHAPTER 2
WHY DO WE SEE SO MANY BAR CHARTS? 13
CHAPTER 3
HOW AND WHEN TO USE COLOR 27
CHAPTER 4
WHAT CHARTS YOU SHOULD KNOW AND LOVE
(AND SOMETIMES LOATHE) 49
CHAPTER 5
HOW TO GET PEOPLE TO USE CHARTS
AND DASHBOARDS 125
CHAPTER 6
WHY COLLABORATION IS CRITICAL 141
vii
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