Chartosaur Blog

Controlling the Narrative

How Charts are used to Mislead You

From cherry-picked data to manipulated axes, here are five real world case studies of how charts can distort the truth.

NBC's Grocery Price Tracker

The Mixed Story Behind Your Shopping Cart

NBC's tracker uses real checkout data to show how grocery prices have changed across different metro areas. Some items have dropped from earlier peaks while others are higher than last year.

Citi Bike's Entire History, Animated

An interactive dataviz of Citi Bike trips over time. It's simple, but the longer you watch, the more patterns you notice.

When 3D Blocks Hide What Matters

Country Size vs GDP

I came across this chart on r/dataisugly comparing country size to GDP. It's visually ambitious with 3D isometric blocks, but the design makes it harder to see the relationship between how big a country is and how much economic output it generates.

Spain's Fiscal Profiles

The Age Groups Paying In vs. Taking Out

This chart packs in multiple tax types, spending categories, and every single age from 0 to 90.

Why Hexagons?

The Washington Post mapped 121,000 TikTok using viewing patterns alone. But why did they use hexagons to bin the data?

F1 2025

Breaking Down the Championship Win Scenarios

As the 2025 F1 season enters its final stretch, multiple drivers still have mathematical chances at the championship. Let's visualize exactly what needs to happen for each contender.