Making numbers count : the art and science of communicating numbers / by Chip Heath & Karla Starr.

Translate everything, favor user-friendly numbers. Translate everything ; Avoid numbers : perfect translations don't need numbers ; Try focusing on 1 at a time ; Favor user-friendly numbers
To help people grasp your numbers, ground them in the familiar, concrete, and human scale. Find your fathom : help people understand through simple, familiar comparisons ; Convert abstract numbers into concrete objects ; Recast your number into different dimensions : try time, space, distance, money, and Pringles ; Human scale : use the Goldilocks principle to make your numbers just right
Use emotional numbers (surprising and meaningful) to move people to think and act differently. Florence Nightingale avoids dry statistics by using transferred emotion ; Comparatives, superlatives, and category jumpers ; Emotional amplitude : selecting combos that hit the right notes together ; Make it personal : "This is about you" ; Bring your number into the room with a demonstration ; Avoid numbing by converting your number to a process that unfolds over time ; Offer an encore ; Make people pay attention by crystalizing a pattern, then breaking it
Build a scale model. Map the landscape by finding the landmarks ; Build a scale model you can work with ; Epilogue: The value of numbers
Appendix: Making your numbers user-friendly

"Understanding numbers is essential -- but humans aren't built to understand them. Chip Heath outlines specific principles that reveal how to translate a number into our brain's language. This book is filled with examples of extreme number makeovers, vivid before-and-after examples that take a dry number and present it in a way that people click in and say "Wow, now I get it!" This book will help math-lovers and math-haters alike translate the numbers that animate our world - allowing us to bring more data, more naturally, into decisions in our schools, our workplaces, and our society."