One of the world’s leading experts in data visualization analyses the ways in which charts can influence our perception of truth, both negatively and positively. Social media have made charts, infographics and diagrams ubiquitous and easier to share than ever before. While these visualizations can inform us better, they can also mislead us by presenting incomplete or inaccurate data, suggesting deceptive patterns, or conveying incorrect information because they are poorly designed.
Many of us are ill-prepared to interpret the visual information presented to us every day by politicians, journalists, advertisers and even our employers, which allows bad actors to manipulate us easily for their own purposes. Public debate is increasingly shaped by numbers, and to make sense of it we must be able to decode visualizations.
