Charts are used to communicate data visually, but designing an effective chart that a broad set of people can understand is challenging. Usually, we do not know whether a chart's intended message aligns with the message readers perceive. In this mixed-methods study, we investigate how data journalists encode data and how a broad audience engages with, experiences, and understands these data visualizations. We conducted a series of workshops and interviews with school students, university students, job seekers, designers, and senior citizens to collect perceived messages and subjective feedback on a sample of eight real-world charts. We analyzed these messages and compared them to the intended message of the chart producer. Four of the collected messages from consumers were then provided to data journalists (including the ones that created the original charts) as a starting point to re-design the charts accordingly. The results from our work underline the difficulty of complex charts such as stacked bar charts and Sankey diagrams. Consumers are often overwhelmed with the amount of data provided and are easily confused with terms (as text) not well known. Chart producers tend to be faithful with data but are willing to abstract further when asked to transport particular messages visually. There are strong conventions on how to visually encode particular information that might not be to the benefit of many consumers.

翻译：图表用于可视化数据，但设计出能让广泛受众理解的有效图表颇具挑战。我们通常无法确定图表传达的信息是否与读者感知的信息一致。本研究采用混合研究方法，探究数据记者如何编码数据，以及广泛受众如何参与、体验并理解这些数据可视化作品。我们针对八张真实世界图表样本，组织了包含学生（中小学生和大学生）、求职者、设计师及老年公民在内的工作坊和访谈，收集其感知信息和主观反馈。通过分析这些信息并与图表制作者的预期信息进行比较，我们将消费者反馈中提炼的四类信息提供给数据记者（包括原始图表创作者），作为后续重建设计的依据。研究结果凸显了堆叠柱状图和桑基图等复杂图表的理解困难：消费者常因数据量过大而无所适从，也易被不熟悉的术语（文本形式）所困扰；图表制作者虽忠实于数据，但在需通过视觉精准传递特定信息时，更愿意进行抽象处理。当前特定信息的视觉编码规则虽已形成惯例，却未必有益于多数消费者。