Vanguard of vigil information bread he is the author of several other books, functional art, introduction to visualization and the truthful art, data charts and mask medications in his latest book over there, and he will be signing copies afterwards. Getting smarter about vigil information. So thats the topic of tonight. Thank you. [applause]. Thank you for being here tonight and thank you again for the Northeastern University for having me. This is the third time that i make a presentation at this university. I must feel like home. I would like to begin with a little bit of housekeeping. The first think is, i would like to ask you to give an applause to the students who have signed this beautiful poster. [applause]. Their names, i will mispronounce them. Thank you so much for hanging this beautiful poster. Absolutely like it. I think i like it even better on the book cover but anyway. [laughter]. Or housekeeping, if youre interested in the topic and you find interesting. It you find it enlightening or useful, these are not copyrighted and right after i finished giving the presentation, i will tweet out a link to the slides. Pdf file. So feel free to download this slides and use them at will. In her classes are with your friends and family to work, your company. If you think that the concepts will be useful for you, feel free to use the sites. I will explain why President Trump is over here. So they slides, toll the book. In the talk, how charts like. They go way beyond with the book describes. And the purpose of the things that appear in the book itself. A little bit about the books the title itself convinces part of what the book is about but its about much more than what the title says. For quite sometimes i entertain a much longer title that actually captures more about what the book is about how we lie with them actively even to herself and this is the huge problem. I will address it later on during the talk. How will he become a better sure readers and educator cells are how we become better sure designers and why we are in great need of using good charts and meaningful conversations. This is one of the main topics of the book. Im a great believer in both the dangers of charts but also my great believer in the power of charts to eliminate great conversations and many other countries and other places like brazil italy and spain are in great need of this. Charts are everywhere. Im not telling you anything new. If youve been paying attention to news media in the past decade you may have noticed an increase in the number of data and the conversations on the maps and charts and diagrams. Graphs etc. The reason why this is happening is through the analytics, the news media are people really like stars. People like staying charts in the news that they consume part of everybody sure or graph or a map or diagram in the story, engagement of the story increases. In between out or you post something on instagram, if you had some sort of vigil data graphic like a sure or graph, the engagement that person will probably increase as well. So this hour, there is great news on one hand because i am a journalist. But at the same time, i think we need to do with what i call the epistemic gap. Heres what, i mean. Through all of the years i have been serving that the sophistication of data from the station that we see the news media but not only its increasing let the sophistication of the designers agreed these data Vigil Associates in also increasing. In the sophistication of the tools and that is also increasing. So on one hand, and this trump of knowledge, and the difficult thinking etc. We have two groups that are glowingly, apart. Theyre moving apart from each other. On one hand you have sort of what we could call the experts. Many of you are probably experts. If you are in this. People know how to deal with numbers and how to visualize numbers. What worries me is what happens on the other end of the trump. What happens with everybody else in the public right. Is it being is the public being helped to bring itself up to speed with the new technologies. Does the public in general understand the graphs and the maps in the charts that we see everyday in the media. For it. Perhaps the answered to that is no or maybe we could do a little bit better. One of the metrics of the book and the messages of the talk, is that i think we need and when i see we, i mean designers and charts right. Perhaps we need to stop talking so much as we do about the charts and the techniques, the design that we use, and we need to start thinking about how to perhaps, helping everybody else in friends and family etc. Also learn how to reason. One of the reasons why i see this is throughout the years i have observed people in my field the field right come from, and journalism, spread several myths that i believe are detrimental to understanding data. For example, a picture is worth a thousand words. This has brought true. As some i will try to explain that on a few examples. Also its intuitive. A map or a sure and you would assume that everyone would understand it because we all assume that it is something that we can continue all understand just a quick glimpse. With a quick look. That went out spending time to try and understand what it means. On the third one with analytics, the day it should speak for itself, showing the numbers. Be careful with that. This data never speaks for itself. It need you need to talk and you need to interpret and then what you convey, his interpretation of the data. Chantel. This is very common. I usually joke that some of these myths, can be made true in the second part of the sentence pretty if weekend and Something Else but for example, that picture may be worth a thousand words, either if you know how to read it. If you had read it, then the picture is worth a thousand words. This happens with representations of information and also happens with extra interpretations of data. Let me show you a picture, probably only a few will know how to read this picture right. Take a look at this picture. Commonly many of you are familiar with it. Comes with a slogan. We all know how to read these things. America, runs on dunkin. Why do i read this picture like this. Because i been told how to read it. Nobody had told me how to read this picture, i wouldbe like what is this person running away from the United States. [laughter]. Makes sense nowadays pictures can be greatly ambiguous. Relationship to this picture, has brought in the book but that talk is on extension. Of the book and the first time that my little daughter saw this picture, she was four years old. Shes at right now. And remember i was having a cup of coffee and i wanted this image over here. She asked me, and a perfect british accent by the way, because she was watching at the show by the way was a british show. She asked me she saw that, she said the patient yes, daddy, why is the person waving from inside of the toilet. [laughter]. And realized that she was seeing a toilet. And that person coming out of the toilet for some reason. I tweeted these because i found it so funny. But also so revealing of how ambiguous images can be. If they are not properly explained. I tweeted it out and someone who follow us me and twitter, for life to me staying, that doesnt look like a person from inside of the toilet. It looks like a person waving from behind a martini glass. Actually looks like that as well. Pictures can be interpreted in multiple ways. This happens with such into simple image. Think about how ambiguous this could be that went out having explaining. My way here in the plane, i saw a tweet promoting this app and i incorporated it into the talk today. Tina wrapper. And they have also a weblog. They publish this article staying our developer finds out which country has more historically than russians. If you will believe the russians in the world who have during the most of in the business has brought true particular the data. Natural use data to show that is not the russians who consume more alcohol per person per year. If you click on the link, it will take you to the stars bring the sure show the average Alcohol Consumption pure out Alcohol Consumption per year in person and all of these countries. And you can see the russians are actually down here. The line has not varied that much. It does not vary that much. The french actually fewer leaders of year although that number has also decreased. Will is the start going to bed pretty charts are never good about it in nashville. The sure itself is good. But whenever we see a sure we can fix it for a long way in one of the first rules and becoming Group Readers of charts, to Pay Attention to the source. And if it is since patent into the nuances. Never to take charts at face value right. We a look at the source of the data, its disclosing the article, well done. The nuance in the data and the interpretations of the data in the knowledge it of the article itself, they did a great job of that. We do read the article carefully, the article says, we need to be careful with this data. This is only measuring Alcohol Consumption captured by Government Data pretty this data has brought considering the consumption outside of the control the government. Like alcohol that you can bring from home. Which is sort of a tradition in the country. Spain. As one of them. This is free advertising for my friend. Anyway so, the day it has a lot of limitations. We why not understand a sure like this yet i am staring at the sure. We need to take a look at the sure and then we need to read the documentation with the source. And that the first rule of becoming a good visualization reader. And also first role in becoming a good designer because this sure is just showing an estimate for its not capturing the entirety of the reality. Only a small portion of the reality. Thats another picture of charts and charts are never accurate representations of the world they are limited of participation. We need to understand their limitations. While we do that by the way, there is the consequence of these, we should never assume that we can continue understand the sure, we should always stop and read it. They are not meant to be seen. They are meant to be read. Visualization essence are not images. These are our vigil and our arguments made vigil. And like any kind of argument, you have to understand it, you need to Pay Attention to it it take example what happens with maps printed hurricane maps. This is the little bit of pet peeve of mine. This is dorian. The Hurricane Dorian from a month and a off ago or something on that. This is one of the latest forecast of Hurricane Dorian. The National Hurricane center which is based in miami, with the one of the public aware of hurricane meiko. They use these kind of graphics right. The cohen graphic. Is one of the most famous and most likely used maps to inform people of where the hurricane meiko. Tasted look at this example and detail in the book so am not going to go into a lot of detail over here but im going to tell a little bit about the limitations of these maps printed in the many ways of which is map can be interpreted. This is the great to illustrate one principal. As a designer, your creator. The following. What you design, has brought what people see. What you design, is that. Thats cone credit but based on the experiential and evidence of observing how people read this map, and actually interpret this map, we know the many people even in miami and other places that are commonly affected by perkins, one of these that cone, they see Something Like that. They see a hurricane growing in size. Now people are not stupid. If theyre not. There is very good reason why people see an area on threat and they see the company thats a natural mapping. Its a very common way to work with an area on threat to use a different shade of color and close with the line. It looks like the area that may be a threat. But thats not true. Someone is the map represent. What is it code actually representing. We do read the fine print, when the read the documentation of the National Hurricane center, they explain how to read this map correctly. What is representing has brought an area on threat. It is a lot of probable positions of the center of the hurricane in the up next five days. They are telling you basically, most forecast is basically this one that you have over here. We estimate that this will be the brunt of the storm however, we why not be sure. Therefore will going to represent a certain loophole of uncertainty that there the cone of uncertainty. The National Hurricane center first about collects tons of forecasts. For the hurricane meiko and we can show those lines and after the center of the storm, then they come up with their own forecast which is basically pinpointing where they estimate the hurricane meiko. They surround those little dots with circles with increasing size that the loophole of uncertainty. They see it could be here from five days from now but it could be here or could be here are could be here or there anywhere. It could be over here. And then they take that circle and they erase the circle and the result is the cone. Therefore fear a plan to move to florida, this is how to read the map up next time that you see a hurricane. No it is a mean also. It means that areas that are outside of the cones, may be affected by the storm. Because the tone is only showing you the possible position of the center of the storm. And hurricanes have hundreds of miles wide. The means and even if you leave for example in this case in South Carolina out here, you may still be affected by the storm in the road. Five days from now. And now this map, is also misinterpreted but very important people by very important people so this is the forecast on sunday september the 11th of the first. 2019. I can see it and i noticed that the day before i want to use my computer. This is the forecast for august 30th. One day. The storm is basically going to be running over the coast of florida. But then in the morning after, at 5 00 a. M. , the National Hurricane center publish this map showing the dorian was going to move towards the Atlantic Ocean at that same morning, a few hours later, it was published by the National Hurricane center, this was tweeted. The additions of florida South CarolinaNorth Carolina and alabama, will most likely be hit much harder than anticipated. Looking like one of the largest turkeys in the left progress on that way my brain just malfunctioned for a second because id seen map and i saw the tweet if my reaction was basically that what are they talking about. It would mean alabama. What is going on right. After a few days, in this case, they said that this tweet was right. It was a best day. But instead of correcting it which is what anybody would do. If i made this best day is very easy to do this. To misinterpret this the right reaction wouldbe to see i was wrong. It was never likely that alabama was going to be hit. Considering that the storm would move over there. So easily a correction put up in the reaction of the right responses case right. But instead of correcting himself, he doubled down. Trickle down i was right. Alabama wasnt threat. I was right and even sit on a briefing in the oval office at few days later, when she shared a map not for responding to the day of this week, a map from a few days before and issued the tweet. You may notice that he shared, actually extended the cone of uncertainty and is the reason we call this event, sharpie. I look at people what if this does happen. Why could be so wrong. So this has brought why he did it correct himself. That wouldve been the right think to do or the right reaction lease but wont he got it wrong, it was nasally mainly because it was exposed from the days heading into september the first, he was supposed to use tons of maps. Showing that actually one of them went from august 30th a few days before, actually show the day was a low profitability affected by this storm may be 1. The two days before the tweet, there was actually a map showing that. It ended at the map, much earlier than that one of the first maps that will produced, produced by the Water Service i believe. They show the sum of the forecast models one over alabama. There will just a few of them. Most of them will showing that that the hurricane was going to go over florida. In a later forecast shared that there are a few of them that actually touch alabama. This map was published much earlier than the tweet later forecast shared again hurricane moving towards the Atlantic Ocean. Where my going. What im going to tell you about what this map. Not the map itself with the caption of the map. Happening is perfect to illustrate the problems we are dealing with today. The caption says, if anything on this graphic is confusion and ignore the entire product. [laughter]. I absolutely love this caption when i saw it. I loved it so much that even considered it as the title of my up next book and captures perfectly and also the dangers of data or read it can also be extremely confusing and hurricane forecast maps, can be very confusing again i believe very wheeling to be anybody and everybody on the cause of doubt. I couldve made that best day myself. Writing about it in a tweet, tons of different maps leading to september the first. We need to correct the stuff whats going on here. Theres a nerdy part of the presentation. Traditional models of understanding of this usually puts a designer first. When the designer, means any of you anybody who produces this, is designing a sure or map or graphic or whatever, you have a certain mental model of how that is going to work. And what it is representing what do you want to show. But at the 794, we do show has brought what people see. Why not. Because one a reader, looks at your graphic, that reader comes with a completely different kind of mental model. Perhaps, they dont have the same knowledge as you do. This is what happens over here pretty when there is a mismatch between the mental model that the designer is using and the mental model that the reader is using to interpret that map, that is when ambassador understanding happens. And there is a certain component i would see to go with his equation of misunderstanding which is the role of mediators or intermediaries. For these