On our very first Analytics on Fire interview, we’re excited to be speaking to one of the top experts in the data visualization field, Alberto Cairo. Alberto is the Knight Chair at the University of Miami and the author of one of the most impactful books to date in the data visualization field, The Functional Art: An Introduction to Information Graphics and Visualization.
We invited Alberto to discuss some of the concepts laid out in The Functional Art and share his insights into what makes today’s visualization effective. In this engaging conversation, we cover an array of topics such as the common challenges when creating graphics, complexity vs. depth, using narrative in visualizations, and how to teach others to think visually. You won’t want to miss Alberto’s game-changing tips and strategies laid out in this episode!
As a special thanks, Alberto Cairo wanted to give a special gift to our AoF community – the first 40 pages of his new book coming out on March 3rd, 2016, The Truthful Art. Click here to get the first 40 pages of The Truthful Art by Alberto Cairo.
In this episode, you'll learn:
- How Alberto’s unexpected journey lead to becoming a designer.
- Why The Functional Art becoming a hit with business intelligence folks was such a surprise.
- Why Alberto believes people use visualizations ineffectively and how to fix it.
- The main purpose of a graphic and why it’s not what most people think.
- The biggest challenges people face when creating graphics.
- The importance of applying a narrative to your visualizations.
- Complexity vs. depth of visualizations.
- Alberto’s tips for building effective data visualizations.
- How you can think more visually using this simple trick his dad taught him!
Links and Resources mentioned in this episode:
- The Truthful Art (book | ships on March 3, 2016) by Alberto Cairo - available for pre-order
- The Functional Art (b00k) by Alberto Cairo
- Storytelling with Data blog
- Radar graphs: Avoid them (99.9% of the time) – article by Alberto Cairo
- Show Me the Numbers by Stephen Few
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