Show Me the Numbers: Designing Tables and Graphs to Enlighten

by Stephen Few

This old edition of "Show Me the Numbers" has been out of print for many years. Please see the current edition.

Genres: Business, Design, Nonfiction, Communication, Reference, Technical, Science

280 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2004

Reviews

[Cassandralynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I use this book every day at work. Seriously. Every single day. It has the most simple explanations for why to use a table or chart and what it should look like. I say this is a must have for any data analyst and I wish more people in graduate school would take the time to hone this skill! Best book buy for me this year!

[Michael Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

+++ Good overview of what we know about information visualization.
+++ Excellent references: Edward R. Tufte (design of graphs and visual information elements), William S. Cleveland (design and interpretation of visual information artifacts), Colin Ware (human perception and memory model associated with visualization), John W. Tukey (statistics). Also some good references, less known: Gene Zelazny (practical guidelines on charts and slideware), Jonathan G. Koomey (high-level process from data to knowledge, Robert L. Harris (reference), Manfredo Massironi (psychology), Nancy Duarte (slideware presentations).
--/+ Reads like a good, but obvious rehash of what the others have said. Useful to traverse once.
-- Poor book design, with large imagery competing for attention with the many sections elements, and the buleted lists often obfuscating what is actually being said.

[Flynn Heiss · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lot of data viz books cover the same topics, and that holds true for this book as well. However, I found two features quite novel:
- A dedicated portion of the book for building good tables, which are generally ignored in these books in favor of graph design
- Exercises to practice improving bad tables and graphs, which help reinforce important lessons

Overall, if you had to pick just one book to learn how to present data well, this would do the job very nicely.

[Sakib · Rating 4 out of 5]

I very much appreciate a lot of the content in this book: he gives a useful introduction to basic statistics, I enjoyed his explanation of visual perception, and the painstaking detail he's put into this book is apparent.

But I hesitate to give more than 4 stars for a few reasons. One: it's just too long in places. It goes into a level of detail that, for me, is just unnecessarily granular. It gets very boring and a little patronising in places. Two: I find it a little too dogmatic and Tufte-worshipping in its prescriptions. The number of academic references in the book are, for me, a bit worryingly thin, and it fails to present a balanced view of data graphics. He also really hates any data representatiom that borders on circular.

If you're interested in presenting charts with accuracy and love getting super-granular with details, this is for you. It doesn't touch on creating engaging graphics, though - Cairo or McCandless may be better placed to help you if that's your goal.

[Alexandru · Rating 4 out of 5]

A necessary book for those that are presenting and are concerned with the designs used for graphs, and tables. In other words, if you are a professor or involved in delivering reports to the management or public audiences it is a very useful resource. The book in a very detailed and sometimes even academic style explains the type of data, tables, graphs, designs, fonts, colours, patterns etc. used for presenting info to various audiences. It contains tons of examples, and every error in tables and graphs is shown and explained why it is a bad idea to use it. The book can be used as well for learning and testing your skills in this area by providing exercises and tests where you can see if you understood and are ready to apply the stuff you just read. A truly useful tool from the author that also helped Hans Rosling with his TED talk and presentation with the animated bubbles presenting advanced statistical data in time - the penultimate chapter is my favorite and is focusing on presenting animated data.

On another hand, the book is directed at a very specific niche and it will be totally useless for those that have no interest in working with numbers and presenting them in a very simplistic way to various audiences.

The key finding from the book is - present data in the most simplistic way possible to make it easier to understand and save people around you time in these busy times.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent practical application of the principles espoused by Edward Tufte in his classic texts. Few takes Tufte's ideas and gives very practical adivce and guidleines on how to apply them for diaplysing data for best communications.

Highly recommended for anyone preparing tables or graphs for almost any purpose.

[Adrienne Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

Textbook for my data visualization course. Compelling and informative. Best book I've read on storytellling through data.

[Andrew Saul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simply an excellent resource whether you are looking to start to learn data visualisation, or looking to improve what you do now. I can not recommend it more highly.

The kind of book you find yourself going back to time and time again whenever you have a problem you can't quite work out, or you just want a bit of inspiration.

[Ariadna73 · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this author. He is fantastic writing super-clear books and papers and neatly designed documents. I liked his advice; many of which were about what kinds of charts and graphics are definitely not useful; such as pies and donuts (only good for dessert). I put some of his pages in ariadna73's account in scribbd.

[Brian Cluster · Rating 5 out of 5]

Show me the numbers was easily the hardest book that I read in 2024 but also one of the most rewarding. This is a niche business book devoted to the finer details of graph and table composition but after reading several books on the topic, I was pleasantly surprised to be able to further my understanding of data visualization due to the work of Stephen Few.

There's too much to cover from the 286 large sized book but here are were the most valuable principles that I found:

1) Eliminate all elements in a graph that don't benefit the reader
2) Elements of Table and Graph design
3) Gestalt visual design principles
4) Avoidance of Radar and Donut Graphs- Mostly likely they are not needed
5)How to best produce multiple graphs for easy consumption.

Not a book for the faint of heart but very relevant for analyst, BI professionals.

Thanks Stephen Few for an outstanding and very detailed contribution for analytic professionals.

[Alex Leonov · Rating 1 out of 5]

It is a horrible book. Starting from misinformation and bad advice, through the numerous unsubstantiated opinions posed as truth, to many outright idiotic claims and suggestions, this is one of the worst books I have ever read. More than that, applying many principles and suggestions from it is dangerous and can seriously harm the work you are trying to illustrate. Despite a few pieces of good advice that may make a positive impression, you should run away from this book as far as you can. If you want to read it anyway, try to find illogical and inconsistent statements throughout to have a good laugh. Then run away.

[Loki · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Show Me the Numbers: Designing Tables and Graphs to Enlighten" is a book written by Stephen Few, a renowned expert in data visualization and information design. Published in 2004, this book focuses on the principles and best practices of presenting data effectively through tables and graphs.

The book is designed to help readers—particularly professionals in various fields such as business, research, and data analysis—improve their skills in data presentation and visualization. Stephen Few emphasizes the importance of clear, informative, and visually engaging data displays to facilitate better decision-making and understanding of complex information.

[Sean · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a lot bigger than it needs to be. The pages are made of thick paper and the book is huge, but about 1/3 of it is white space. The best advice in the book is to go read Tufte's book. Most of the rest of the book is really obvious stuff, stated over and over. Fortunately, the information is correct, so if you don't know anything about making readable tables and charts, it's a good start.

Advanced charting techniques are either beyond the scope of the book or more generally outright discouraged.

[Hamish · Rating 2 out of 5]

Super boring. I skipped over almost all of it except the end-of-chapter summaries and image captions.

I really liked Information Dashboard Design and was hoping for more straight to the point hardnosed data professionalism. But this book was mostly wallowing in the minutiae of table design.

I got two actionable insights:
- "Consider placing summaries in the group header if the information extends down multiple pages."
- When putting two time series with different scales in the same plot, you can give the left and right axes different colours to match the plot lines.

[Jeremy · Rating 5 out of 5]

If any part of your job requires that you present data you need to have this on your bookshelf!
It's a textbook, easy to reference when needed. It even contains a short section on 3D charts. To summarize that section - just don't use 3D charts ... ever.
It has also aged well, considering it is nearly 2 decades old, the principles still apply to humans creating for humans.

[Clifton Franklund · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a terrific book on the graphic design of data presentation. I wish that I had read it much earlier. Now some of the graphs and tables in my already published work make me cringe a little. It has me also reconsidering most of my lecture materials.

[Luis Miguel · Rating 4 out of 5]

He mejorado mi percepción de lo que es un gráfico sin distracciones. He aprendido a identificar las relaciones entre números que representan los diferentes tipos de gráficos.

Libor de amena lectura y muy pedagógico

[Maxim Korotkov · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a good start with some basic explanation of how we perceive visual information. To my taste, I would expect the author to pay more attention to this topic as it gives some scientific background.

[Javier Burroni · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this book is not great, it has some unique content worth mentioning. In particular, chapter 8 to 12 provides low level discussions on how to create good quality tables and figures. It even includes exercises, which is a bit uncommon in the field.

[Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

As someone who considered themselves an expert on data analysis and visualisation this book helped challenge some of my practices and also reinforce standards that I already applied intuitively. I would recommend this book to anyone who uses excel / tables / graphs in their day to say role.

[Carmen Foglia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a MUST for any person working with data.
This is my most valuable book for everyday work as a Data Scientist.

[Shimista · Rating 3 out of 5]

not the right book for my needs/interests, so just skimmed/flipped through

[Ibraheem Qaed · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was my entrance for visualization and one of the best book that can give you the ground rules for displaying data in a proper and perceivable way.

[Bickety Bam · Rating 5 out of 5]

If this is a topic you are interested in, then you will find this book to be comprehensive for a business-oriented audience and entirely practical. It will make a great reference for daily use.

[Vitalie Ciobanu · Rating 2 out of 5]

Language may be too complex to follow for a non native person.
I needed quiet to really understand a lot of topics, paragraphs, many of which I've read more than once.

[John Mosman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Detailed book about charts and graph, the components and when to use. Highly recommended for chart geeks!

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent tutorial on the specific topic. Author ran out of ideas towards the end of the book.

[Sudipta Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

A guide book for data visualisation. Anyone interested in data and numbers uses the textbook describing and showing the principles of making effective figures by making a smart and simple choice

[Nacho · Rating 4 out of 5]

A must-read for the professional of data visualization to debunk many of the myths in modern day data reporting options.

[Arun · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book covering the essentials for making tables and graphs. Like the way it is written with mild humour in some places.