ChartChecker: A User-Centred Approach to Support the Understanding of Misleading Charts

Misinformation through data visualisation is particularly dangerous because charts are often perceived as objective data representations. While past efforts to counter misinformation have focused on text and, to some extent, images and video, developing user-centred strategies to combat misleading charts remains an unresolved challenge. This study presents a conceptual approach through ChartChecker, a browser-plugin that aims to automatically extract line and bar chart data and detect potentially misleading features such as non-linear axis scales. A participatory design approach was used to develop a user-centred interface to provide transparent, comprehensible information about potentially misleading features in charts. Finally, a think-aloud study (N = 15) with ChartChecker revealed overall satisfaction with the tools' user interface, comprehensibility, functionality, and usefulness. The results are discussed in terms of improving user engagement, increasing transparency and optimising tools designed to counter misleading information in charts, leading to overarching design implications for user-centred strategies for the visual domain.