The infographic, also known as data visualisation, is one of those a picture is worth a thousand words examples, literally.
Their ability to convey information, and ideally knowledge, of the sort that allows you to go “ah ha” that’s interesting, is increasingly important.
That’s because images themselves have much more ability to be viral – to be shared through social media such as Pinterest, Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter.
In making data understandable (beyond its Excel or spreadsheet prison), you’re free to ask, and answer questions.
Mohawk Media’s Helen Baxter gave an excellent presentation at a recent Netsquared Wellington Meetup, on ‘Beyond the graph – an introduction to data visualisation’.
Infographics is one of Mohawk’s many (they’re a talented bunch) storytelling skills. Helen is often a go-to media comment person as well – so the facts she comes up with are invariably the real McCoy.
Check out the Prezi of her presentation here.
This wasn’t part of Helen’s presentation, but here is an infographic on the value of infographics, by zabisco.
And here are Helen’s whats, whys and hows – a summary of the presentation.
What is an infographic – visual content with data
- Static – popular online/print
- Animated – linear video standard
- Dynamic – real time/interative
Why infographics
- 87% of viewers read text on infographics
- visuals are processed 60,000 times faster than text
- content with visuals get 90% more views
- visual content is 40% more likely to be shared
- infographics can increase traffic by 12%
How do you use them
- visual executive summary
- illustrating surveys and reports
- communicating to the general public
- increased transparency in reporting
- creating shareable content
Benefits of infographics
- show context and data
- easy to understand
- shareable – use creative commons
Getting ready
- clean datasets
- attribute sources
- key messages
- target audience
- channels
Skills
- data
- storytelling
- design
- publishing (including metadata)
- communications
DIY tools
Static design templates
Blackboard/whiteboard animation tool
Free dataviz tool
Links
Punchline understands the the how and why of infographics. If you’re the who, looking for some help, give us a call.