I would also recommend checking out Stephen Few's books (Information Dashboard Design and/or Show Me the Numbers) for quick and useful guidelines on visually co

I would also recommend checking out Stephen Few's books (Information Dashboard Design and/or Show Me the Numbers) for quick and useful guidelines on visually communicating data. Few is a big advocate of Tufte's work and books, and he has a nice set of good vs bad practices in Information Dashboard Design. I've been an evangelist for Few's books and practices as a "best" starting place for those of us less naturally gifted at data visualization (especially for simpler data or business purposes). He has heavily influenced how I look at typical IT charts and graphs.