Visual Trumpery: How Charts Lie – And How They Can Make Us Smarter

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We"ve all heard the old saying "a picture is worth a thousand words" but is it true in the case of graphs, maps, and diagrams? It is —but only if those charts are correctly designed, and if you understand their grammar and vocabulary. Charts of different kinds can reveal hidden patterns and trends in data, but they can also mislead and obscure. This talk will equip you with the skills to tell the difference.

About the speaker

The School of Journalism Media and Culture and the School of Computer Science and Informatics are delighted to welcome Alberto Cairo to Wales to give a free public lecture, ahead of his keynote lecture at the 2nd European Data and Computational Journalism Conference.

Alberto is the Knight Chair in Visual Journalism at the University of Miami. He teaches data visualization and infographics on the Journalism and Interactive Media Masters programs. He is also the director of the Visualization Program at UM’s Center for Computational Science.

He has been in journalism for twenty years, as a director of infographics and multimedia at news publications in Spain and Brazil. He has also taught at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

He also works as a freelancer and consultant for institutions and companies including Google, Microsoft, the European Union, and many others.

He has written two books about visualization, The Functional Art: An Introduction to Information Graphics and Visualization (2012) and The Truthful Art: Data, Charts, and Maps for Communication (2016).

www.thefunctionalart.com

Twitter: @albertocairo