Making Numbers Matter

A vital, practical, and unique guide to understanding cold clinical data and harnessing it to tell a compelling story.
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How many hours have you spent listening to songs on Spotify Wrapped this year?
What is the real value of your commute time?
How do you calculate your risk of contracting COVID-19 based on official statistics?
How do your viewing hours compare to the most popular shows on Netflix?

Whether you're interested in global issues like climate change, business management, or simply understanding how few people washed their hands between visiting the bathroom and touching you, this book will help math lovers and math haters alike interpret the numbers that illuminate our world.

Until very recently, most languages ​​didn't have words for numbers greater than five—anything from six to infinity was known as "many." As numbers become more complex in our world, our brains remain stuck in the past. However, the ability to communicate and understand numbers has never been more important. How can we translate numbers and statistics—which are essential to the next big idea—more effectively into data visualization? Based on years of research into how ideas take hold, Chip Heath and Carla Starr outline six core principles that will give everyone the tools to communicate numbers with more transparency and meaning. Using concepts like simplicity, clarity, and familiarity, they show us how to transform hard numbers into their most engaging form, allowing us to incorporate more data, naturally, into decisions in our schools, workplaces, and communities.