HCI Seminar - Alberto Cairo - Principled Data Visualization
Speaker
Host
Abstract:
Conversations and scholarship about charts and maps often focus on technical aspects (software, techniques, and practices,) or on perceptual and cognitive effectiveness. They don't discuss the motivations, goals, and ethos of the designers who create those charts with the same frequency. This talk will try to shift that balance, and outline a very personal and tentative ethical framework.
Bio:
Alberto Cairo is a Professor and Knight Chair in Infographics and Data Visualization at the University of Miami. He has been graphics director at news publications in Spain and Brazil, and today he collaborates with tech companies such as Google, and with international institutions such as the European Union and the World Bank. Cairo is the author of four books, The Functional Art (2012), The Truthful Art (2016), How Charts Lie (2019), and The Art of Insight (2023), and in January of 2026 he launched the Open Visualization Academy (https://openvisualizationacademy.org/) a large and constantly expanding library of free courses about information design and data visualization.
This talk will also be streamed over Zoom: https://mit.zoom.us/j/94291735560.