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Alberto Cairo

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How Charts Lie: Getting Smarter about Visual Information

by Alberto Cairo (Author)

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A leading data visualization expert explores the negative―and positive―influences that charts have on our perception of truth.

Today, public conversations are increasingly driven by numbers. While charts, infographics, and diagrams can make us smarter, they can also deceive―intentionally or unintentionally. To be informed citizens, we must all be able to decode and use the visual information that politicians, journalists, and even our employers present us with each day. Demystifying an essential new literacy for our data-driven world, How Charts Lie examines contemporary examples ranging from election result infographics to global GDP maps and box office record charts, as well as an updated afterword on the graphics of the COVID-19 pandemic.

175 illustrations

ISBN-10

0393358429
ISBN-13

978-0393358421
Publisher

W. W. Norton & Company
Publication date

2020
October 13
Language

EN
English
Dimensions

5.5 x 0.7 x 8.3
inches
Length

256
Pages
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"A must-read for anyone who wants to stay informed."
― Cathy O’Neil, best-selling author of Weapons of Math Destruction

"[Cairo’s] book could not be more timely."
― Economist

"This book offers a succinct, elegant, accessible look at the ways data can be represented or misrepresented and is a perfect primer for anyone who cares about the difference."
― Charles Wheelan, author of Naked Statistics

"At a time of widespread concern over disinformation in the media, Cairo provides a valuable corrective to the acceptance of numbers, and their visual representation, as having objective truth."
― Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"As this entertaining addition demonstrates, the ‘how to lie with statistics’ genre is alive and well.… An ingenious tool for detecting flaws in charts, which nowadays seem mostly deliberate."
― Kirkus Reviews

"A powerful reference that advises consumers how to better interpret the data being represented in graphic form."
― Midwest Book Review

"I wish we lived in a world where you didn’t need to read Alberto Cairo’s How Charts Lie, a robust guide to self-defense against graphs and figures designed to mislead. But here we are, and yes, you do."
― Jordan Ellenberg, author of How Not to Be Wrong

"Alberto Cairo has written a wise, witty, and utterly beautiful book. You couldn’t hope for a better teacher to improve your graphical literacy."
― Tim Harford, author of The Undercover Economist and presenter of More or Less

"Alberto Cairo shares great examples of data visualization and storytelling for anyone who wants to dig into their data."
― Dona Wong, author of The Wall Street Journal Guide to Information Graphics

"A picture may be worth a thousand words, but only if you know how to read it. In this book, Alberto Cairo teaches us how to get smarter about visual information by reading charts with attention and care. I found a lot to steal here, and you will, too."
― Austin Kleon, author of Steal Like an Artist

About the Author

Alberto Cairo is the Knight Chair in Infographics and Data Visualization at the School of Communication of the University of Miami. He has consulted with companies and institutions such as Google and the Congressional Budget Office on visualizations. He lives in Miami, Florida.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton & Company (October 13, 2020)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 256 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0393358429
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0393358421
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 10.5 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.7 x 8.3 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #454,548 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #239 in Statistics (Books)
- #383 in Probability & Statistics (Books)
- #956 in Communication & Media Studies

Customer Reviews:
4.6 419 ratings

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Alberto Cairo

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Alberto Cairo is the Knight Chair in Visual Journalism at the University of Miami (UM), and director of the visualization program of UM's Center for Computational Science. He teaches courses on visualization and infographics for effective communication. He also works as an independent data visualization consultant for companies such as Google and Microsoft.

Cairo's latest book is “How Charts Lie: Getting Smarter about Visual Information", published by W.W. Norton in October 2019. Previously he wrote “The Functional Art: an Introduction to Information Graphics and Visualization” (Peachpit Press, 2012), and “The Truthful Art: Data, Charts, and Maps for Communication” (Peachpit Press, 2016)

Cairo has taught in more than 30 countries in the past 20 years, and has extensive experience as a manager of visualization and infographics teams in news organizations in Spain, Brazil, and the United States.

Cairo's website is www.albertocairo.com and his Twitter handle is @albertocairo

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4.6 out of 5

419 global ratings

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william chase

Should be required reading

Reviewed in the United States on April 27, 2020

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This was one of the most enjoyable books I've ever read on data visualization. In this compact volume, Alberto lays out the foundations of 'graphicacy' -- essentially literacy for charts and graphs. The book is broken up into easily digestible sections and written with succinct and precise language, making it an absolute joy to read. Unlike other technical books, I never felt bogged down when reading, and the structure allows you to sit down, take 10 minutes to read a section or two, and come back to it later--perfect for people that are busy and easily distracted (like myself).

The book is filled with important and practical advice on how to read and interpret charts and graphs. Not only does it cover the techniques that disingenuous chart makers can use to deceive, but also the mistakes and misinterpretations that even well-educated folks make when reading charts. In the era of mis- and disinformation, when data is quickly becoming a lingua franca, this book is more important than ever, and should be considered required reading for high school students (and adults!) the world over. But while the book is certainly aimed at the layperson, there's valuable information even for seasoned dataviz practitioners. I had an education in science and mathematics, and now I work full time as a researcher/data analyst/dataviz expert and I still found the book quite useful as a summary of common numerical and graphical misconceptions. I learned new information, and I found the book an excellent refresher.

TLDR - A top notch book for anyone wanting to be a more informed person. Buy this book, you'll be glad you did.

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

A must have for pretty much anyone

Reviewed in the United States on December 16, 2020

Verified Purchase

I am a huge fan of Alberto Cairo so when this book was released, I quickly grabbed a copy. it's taken me awhile to post a review, but didn't take me long to read through the book! It's a fabulous book for anyone especially in these days where we are constantly bombarded with charts and maps in the news. Cairo explains how to read charts and how to best create charts and maps that are clear and easy to understand. If you work with data at all, this book is a must have so you create effective and clear visualizations. Often the best ways to learn is to see how NOT to something - and this book accomplishes that for sure.

Reading through the table of contents you can see that he covers all the key points - how charts work, poorly designed charts, dubious data, insufficient data, uncertainty, and misleading patterns.

Get this book. You won't regret it.

I also highly recommend Alberto Cairo's other books - The Truthful Art and The Functional Art. I've always been a proponent of good data visualization, but it was the Truthful Art book that turned me into a data viz evangelist!

One person found this helpful

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John Rosenfelder

An Important Lesson for Scientists

Reviewed in the United States on November 5, 2019

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More excellence in data visualization and communicating insights from one of the world's best teachers on the topic. Alberto's humanities-based approach: telling stories about data and explaining things in a way non-scientists can understand. While not as earth-shaking as his foundational texts "The Functional Art" and "The Truthful Art," as a veteran of several of his classes and lectures, I think one of the best lessons of this book is a hidden one - at some point, Alberto changed the title from being a shot at the cheeto to something more long lasting and less specifically tied to this era. In channeling his emotions and irritation with the cheeto into a more universal and less intimidating presentation (at least for some), he has brought in more people. More importantly, he has also taught us as scientists to control our emotions and personal views in a profound way. So yes, read this book and ALL the others by Alberto Cairo.

One person found this helpful

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N. Haims

Cairo review - A perfectly timed book, and an accessible one

Reviewed in the United States on October 25, 2019

Verified Purchase

Alberto Cairo’s latest seems perfectly timed considering the current state of news, media and politics. The book targets itself more to the average consumer of charts rather than data viz professionals, and to that end it contains a lot of examples from politics starting off with variations on the 2016 presidential voting map. It’s a good example to kick off the discussion as it demonstrates in various ways how charts can deceive.

The rest of the book is broken down into different ways that charts can lie—either intentionally or not—leaving the reader with the ultimate takeaway to be skeptical of everything. The more successful examples are the ones—like the presidential voting maps—that show the same data presented in different ways.

While any data viz pro will recognize a lot of expected topics, there is still some very good in depth coverage of Y-axes, scales, shading, data defining, and omission of data. All covered with accessible and understandable examples—some we’ve seen before and many we haven’t.

As always with the author, the book is thoroughly researched and well-notated with an excellent bibliography.

If there is a criticism, it might be in the production values of the book. Unlike Cairo’s previous works printed in full, glossy color, this is a 2-color production that forces you to focus more on the words really than the charts. Add to this the smaller form factor, and some of the charts printed all in shades of red and black can be a little hard to read at times. Ultimately the mood feels more academic than previous books, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Definitely worth adding to the bookshelf!

7 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Nabil B*

For me, it is a reference book

Reviewed in Canada on July 28, 2023

Verified Purchase

Excellent work by Alberto Cairo. I have read the book several times and use it as a reference. Like the part about visualizations as a language... and the many examples in there.

Amazon Kunde

Get it. Read it. You'll thank yourself later.

Reviewed in Germany on October 22, 2019

Verified Purchase

Must have ordered it a while ago, because when I opened my Kindle the other day I found that it downloaded. The 21st century is cool.

The book is different than I thought. I read the Function Art and was expecting something similar. It kind of is, but then again it is different. The Functional Art felt like it aimed at people trying to understand why a chart was good. This one feels like it tries to help people understand why a chart is bad. My impression is that this will be the more influential book.

The chapters focus on reasons why a chart is bad. At the end of the book you will be able to spot all kinds of bad plots. Furthermore you will have the background to know why they are bad. You may even be able to point out if the creator made bad designed choices or may be trying to mislead.

Like the last time I closed one of Albertos' book I had two sentiments:
- the book could have been longer, more dense, and more in depth
- it was the right book because it helped me get closer to the deep end. And I am excited to dive deeper.

So. Read the book. If not to show off in front of people that didn't then for your own good. Nobody wants to hear that a pie chart got the better of them. ;-)

2 people found this helpful

Mohit Panse

A must read

Reviewed in India on February 23, 2022

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Alberto Cairo has explained in very good detail, how tweaking charts can portray a different message altogether.

L. Petersen

Well worth reading!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 28, 2020

Verified Purchase

Having read Cairo's other books, I preordered this. It's a different angle from his other books, but just as important. The text is easy to understand, but gives an in-depth understanding on what to be aware of when seeing datavisualization, graphs and diagrams especially in the news.
Not least now, during the corona crisis where graphs and data are rife, it's important to know how to ask the relevant questions and make sure you understand what is actually there. Well worth a read!

Alex_JJ

Some good points but lacks substance.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 4, 2020

Verified Purchase

The important, core argument is that charts need to be read, rather than just seen, and the reader needs to learn the language and vocabulary of charts. He describes this over six themed chapters and 250 pages with plenty of good illustrations.

Why only 3 stars? Mainly, as I'm not sure who it's aimed at. It's too long for school children, not engaging enough for general readers and too insubstantial for professionals. Secondly, it feels like a book which has been designed by a quick Mind Map which had the six main points padded out to 250 pages of chatty prose. It also has annoying lapses from poor proofreading.

If you have a serious interest in expressing data this will be a very disappointing book.

2 people found this helpful

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