The focus of this book is on turning raw, quantitative data into attractive, well-designed tables and charts that tell an accurate story about the underlying data. Valerie M. Sue and Matthew Griffin's approach is unique in that they discuss theory, for example, how perspective can be used to convey the relative importance of elements in a design, and then turn that into practice as they apply the principle to creating a chart. They use Microsoft Office programs (Excel, PowerPoint, and Word) to illustrate and teach the principles, thus rendering the text accessible to a large audience.