Naomi B. Robbins: How to Avoid Some Common Graphical Mistakes

The idea for this session came from a question asked at our last meetup. An audience member asked what is wrong with pie charts. I decided we need a program that is more basic than our usual ones. Although this talk will be elementary, I suspect that most attendees will identify with some of the mistakes shown.

Abstract:
Good graphs are extremely powerful tools for communicating quantitative information clearly and accurately. Unfortunately, many of the graphs we see today are poor graphs that confuse, mislead or deceive the reader. These poor graphs often occur because the graph designer is not familiar with the principles of effective graphs or because the software used has a poor choice of default settings. We point out some of these graphical mistakes. In most cases, very simple changes make the resulting graphs easier for the reader to understand. In addition, we show some common mistakes with tables. We end with some useful little-known graph forms that communicate the data more clearly than the everyday graphs that are more commonly used.

Bio:
Naomi is a consultant and seminar leader who specializes in the graphical display of data. She offers keynotes, lunch and learns, short courses and workshops to train employees of corporations and organizations on the effective presentation of data. She also reviews documents and presentations for clients, suggesting improvements or alternative presentations as appropriate. She is the author of "Creating More Effective Graphs." Naomi is a Past-chair of the Statistical Graphics Section of the American Statistical Association and is the organizer of the Data Visualization New York Meetup.

Many thanks to Datadog for hosting and sponsoring this event.

Upcoming Meetup:
Alberto Cairo’s new book “How Charts Lie” will be published in October. He has chosen our meetup for his book launch. Save October 23rd for this event.

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