

Five Ways to Lie with Charts - chmars
http://nautil.us/issue/19/illusions/five-ways-to-lie-with-charts

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imh
Other good versions of this concept:

[https://hbr.org/2014/12/vision-statement-how-to-lie-with-
cha...](https://hbr.org/2014/12/vision-statement-how-to-lie-with-charts)

[http://data.heapanalytics.com/how-to-lie-with-data-
visualiza...](http://data.heapanalytics.com/how-to-lie-with-data-
visualization/)

There's an amazing version I read about two years back I wish I could find too
:(

~~~
wlkr
Further examples from Simply Statistics.

[http://simplystatistics.org/2012/11/26/the-statisticians-
at-...](http://simplystatistics.org/2012/11/26/the-statisticians-at-fox-news-
use-classic-and-novel-graphical-techniques-to-lead-with-data/)

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cjhveal
Each of the provided examples leverage the fact that we make very quick, snap
judgements to form our first (and often only) impression. Adding superfluous
detail to the chart causes the casual observer to focus on information that
isn't actually relevant to the underlying data.

One thing I found really confusing, though, was that they changed the colors
in some of the examples. I had to check the legend of the second example,
because I'd thought the order had changed. And double check because the labels
of the legends are listed in a different order than what is displayed on the
chart itself.

While it is supposed to be an example of confusing charts, I think the author
might have conveyed their message more clearly by focusing on one "trick" at a
time.

~~~
x0054
Yep, I did the same, head to check that cone example twice before I figured
out what was going on.

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xjia
You may also like [http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~gernot/benchmarking-
crimes.html](http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~gernot/benchmarking-crimes.html)

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kozukumi
I hate charts. There is no standard way to present data so you have to learn
and think about how to process the data you see. Whereas a simple column of
numbers in percentages or whatever is almost instant to process as it requires
no more than understanding that 55% is more than 45% for example.

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underwater
Another good one is comparing an absolute number to a relative one. For
example this chart[1] shows the total population vs. percentage breakdown and
insinuates the lines should have similar slopes on both (disclaimer: I'm
judging the presentation and not the message).

[1]
[https://twitter.com/bswud/status/475932621948846081](https://twitter.com/bswud/status/475932621948846081)

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rtpg
Quartz (qz.com) is a prime offender of the last one. They have little "chart
of the day"s, and every time the scale is fit so that the graph minimum is at
the bottom of the scale, and the max at the top for maximum variation.

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digi_owl
The "hiding in plain sight" example is a particular problem for me. I can't
seem to get to grips with how to read that chart on the right.

~~~
wingerlang
Imagine the different colors as different browsers. At 2004 maybe blue/IE is
big and through the years you'll see it grow or shrink with it's usage. I
think it has the additional benefit of showing that when one takes more, the
others naturally get less.

But I'm not into statistics, I might be wrong.

~~~
pluma
It's a reasonable choice if you want to show market share at the same time as
market growth. Considering the example of browser statistics, you could
imagine a graph showing the total height growing considerably over the years
while the height of some browsers remains static (or even shrinks).

If the overall height grows and some browsers remain static, that means the
other browsers likely didn't "steal" any of its market share, they were just
better at attracting new users.

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leni536
This is the first time I seen a "cone chart". Is it really in use? I hope not.

