Robert Kosara

  • Paper: More Than Meets the Eye: A Closer Look at Encodings in Visualization

    Paper: More Than Meets the Eye: A Closer Look at Encodings in Visualization

    Encodings play a central role in visualization, but I believe our thinking about them is too simplistic. In a new paper, I argue that we need to distinguish between the encodings that specify how a visualization is drawn and the ones that are readable or actually read by an observer. While they largely or entirely […]


  • The (Possible) Stratagem Behind the Biden Bar

    The (Possible) Stratagem Behind the Biden Bar

    A bar chart with a distorted vertical axis isn’t very unusual. But what if that chart was posted by the White House and what if it was done on purpose – not to overstate the number shown, but rather to evoke a particular kind of response?


  • The NY Times COVID Spiral Is Off-Center

    The NY Times COVID Spiral Is Off-Center

    An opinion piece in the New York Times last week got a lot of attention in visualization circles for its use of a spiral chart as its opener. While the choice of chart and color scheme can be debated, I want to discuss the fact that the spiral is disconcertingly off-center.