Y axes don’t lie to people, people do

In marketing, and especially media, we see a lot of charts.

I’m always baffled at how often data is misrepresented because of fundamental misunderstandings of simple concepts such as bases, indexes, and filters.

If you’ve ever presented a chart that tells a story which your audience would prefer wasn’t true, you’ll undoubtedly have encountered that one person that questions the research, the sample, the base, or the use of the axes.

Here’s a great video from the talented people at Vox on the realities of axes in charts – something from which every strategist can take a page.