How Is Data Visualization Both a Help and a Trap?

Data has the power to broaden our understanding—but it can also mislead us. In this talk, Luming Zhao shares what he’s learned from seven years of designing data stories: how visualizing data can make the world more legible, but also how it demands critical thinking. Through a wide range of examples, he explores how data visualization goes beyond the news—how it can store knowledge, activate communities, and even support personal healing.

He challenges the audience not to just consume data but to engage with it—create it, question it, and use it to tell meaningful stories. In a time when public discourse often feels fragmented, data visualization can help rebuild the connections between people and ideas. Luming Zhao is a data visual storyteller. He turns information into insight, and visuals into bridges between people and the world around them. His work lives at the crossroads of journalism, design, and technology, and has been featured by global media outlets. To Luming, data visualization isn’t just a way to show facts—it’s a creative, civic, and human practice, one that he’s committed to exploring for a lifetime.