Data Visualization for Financial and Business Leaders

Steve Wexler is one of my favorite teachers in the data visualization space because he’s easy to understand and doesn’t speak over our heads. He’s the co-author of The Big Book of Dashboards, and his newest book is The Big Picture. Our topics include preattentive attributes, the love affair with stoplight colors, dead-end dashboards, and important tips when building visualizations. We also talk about the so-what of three different chart types.

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Steve’s Books

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Interview Highlights

• A Stephen Few shoutout
• Steve’s background is not in analytics
• Spotfire – the first tool Steve used
• Seth Godin – “How the heck … ?”
• Preattentive attributes
• The love affair with stoplight colors
• Quantitative vs qualitative data
• Internal vs public dashboards
• Slope graphs, bump charts, jump plots
• KNOW THY AUDIENCE

Designing a presentation without an audience in mind is like writing a love letter and addressing it to whom it may concern.

Ken Haemer, Former AT&A Presentation Research Manager

Other Books and Authors Mentioned During the Interview

• Alberto Cairo
• Cole Nessbaumer Knaflic
• The Data Detective
• Stephen Few
• Say it With Charts
• Don’t Make Me Think

Favorite Books

I ask every guest about their favorite books. Here are a few that Steve mentioned:

• A Wrinkle in Time
• The Data Detective / How to Make the World Add Up
• Mistakes Were Made (but Not by Me)

Similar Episodes

If you liked the conversation with Steve Wexler, be sure to check these out:

• From Data Extractions to Business Insights with Dan Murray
• A CFO’s Playbook for Data Science and Analytics with Jon Daniels