How Charts Lie
by Alberto Cairo · first published 2019
100% recommend
Why HN recommends it
Covers how charts and visualizations mislead and how to read data graphics critically. It is a delightful read and well suited to anyone interested in misleading data visualization.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
A leading data visualization expert explores the negative - and positive - influences that charts have on our perception of truth. We’ve all heard that a picture is worth a thousand words, but what if we don’t understand what we’re looking at? Social media has made charts, infographics, and diagrams ubiquitous - and easier to share than ever. While such visualizations can better inform us, they can also deceive by displaying incomplete or inaccurate data, suggesting misleading patterns - or simply misinform us by being poorly designed, such as the confusing “eye of the storm” maps shown
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Alberto Cairo, who produced the charts in the paper is about to publish the book "How Charts Lie: Getting Smarter about Visual Information". His other books are excellent, I bet this one will also be.
on “Graphics That Seem Clear Can Easily Be Misread” ↗Alberto Cairo recently released his "How Charts Lie". It's a delightful read. https://www.amazon.com/How-Charts-Lie-Getting-Information/dp...
on “Why scientists need to be better at data visualization” ↗…Unlocked, Thomas Cormen, 212 pages The Art of Readable Code, Dustin Boswell & Trevor Foucher, 180 pages How To Take Smart Notes, Sonke Ahrens, 151 pages How to Write a Thesis, Umberto Eco, 223 pages How Charts Lie, Alberto Cairo, 193 pages
on “Ask HN: Best books under 200 pages for developers?” ↗People interested in misleading data visualization should look into Alberto Cairo's Book: How Charts Lie
on “Vibechart” ↗…"philosophy" of data presentation: The first that comes to mind is "the visual display of quantitative information" by Edward Tufte seems to be freely available online, and the other one on my mind is "how charts lie" by Alberto Cairo (which doesn't seem to be freely accessible) But if it helps, just some "initial gut feel observations" from me: * It's definitely not possible to find issue with the the _sheer amount_…
on “Btrfs/ZFS/bcachefs under workloads classic benchmarks skip” ↗