Data visualizations have been booming for the last five plus years. It’s true, we used to find out all of our information from reading it or hearing it in detail, but with the growth of technology comes the growth of graphics, and we’ve been able to present information in newer ways.
With that, there are good ones and there are not so good ones. The good ones feed us the information in an effective way, and lay out how it should be understood. The not so good ones may provide what looks like effective information, but it may be misleading for the viewer, or done in an uninteresting way (which may not keep the viewers attention).
For these reasons, I developed a presentation titled “How to Create an Effective and Compelling Infographic.” Throughout the five minutes, I walk through what makes an effective graphic – including how to reduce the spread of misinformation – and the design behind a memorable, compelling one.
I go through a series of four steps to do this:
- Know your audience
- Collect your data
- Define the scope of your infographic layout
- Define the scope of your infographic style
To hear more – take a watch below. Enjoy!
In a few weeks time, I will expand on this topic in a written essay. Come back to learn more about what makes information compelling, easy, and authentic to understand. See you soon!
Citations:
Cairo, A. (2020). How charts lie: getting smarter about visual information. W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Cao, J. (2015, April 7). Web design color theory: how to create the right emotions with color in web design. https://thenextweb.com/news/how-to-create-the-right-emotions-with-color-in-web-design.
Fussell, G. (2020, May 16). The Psychology of Fonts (Fonts That Evoke Emotion). https://design.tutsplus.com/articles/the-psychology-of-fonts–cms-34943.
McCandless, D. (2021). What Makes a Good Data Visualization . https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/what-makes-a-good-data-visualization/.
Nediger, M. (202AD, June 24). How to Make an Infographic in 5 Steps (Guide). https://venngage.com/blog/how-to-make-an-infographic-in-5-steps/.
Sinar, E. (2016, February 14). 7 Data Visualization Types You Should be Using More (and How to Start). https://medium.com/@EvanSinar/7-data-visualization-types-you-should-be-using-more-and-how-to-start-4015b5d4adf2.
Visual Mapping – The Elements of Information Visualization. (2020). https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/visual-mapping-the-elements-of-information-visualization.
Julie Anderson 
Julie,
This was one of my favorite talks. You spoke at a pace that wasn’t too fast, allowing the audience to process the information and receive everything you had to stay. You also kept it relevant; avoiding too much jargon and adding humor into the mix helped draw me into the story.
It was also really insightful and helpful. I’m planning to do an infographic for this week’s assignment, so having this talk to use as a condensed resource to springboard from is perfect!
Your visuals complemented the story perfectly, and the inclusion of appropriate and inappropriate examples helped the audience visually affirm what you were telling us.
Connecting the portions of color and font theory was another great touch to help round out how to make a compelling infographic, and honestly, I didn’t even think of tying to those components in, but it’s a super smart idea and a great way to connect several modules.
After watching your talk, I think you have set yourself up well for the essay assignment. You have enough information to create a powerful essay, but not too much that you might exceed the word limit.
Again really great job on this presentation. I’m excited to see the final essay.
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Hi Julie,
I loved watching your video. I felt that this was very helpful and practical. Using clearly defined steps to describe the components of a good infographic would be useful to many. Personally, I find that if a see a visually appealing and easy-to-read infographic and then attempt to make one myself, I get overwhelmed. This presentation gave me a framework to start with to create one that is effective. It seems that a lot of what goes into a nice infographic is context; the people that it is for and the data that needs to be presented. You used great examples of bad infographics. I had the exact thoughts that you explained when I saw these examples. Also, you speak at a nice pace throughout your video so that your points are easy to understand.
Perhaps for your final paper, you could delve more into examples of good infographics of different types. There are tons and tons of good ones that could be analyzed. You could definitely go more in-depth about the effect colors and fonts have than you could in this short video. You could also discuss how visuals affect the way that we can perceive certain statistics, whether it makes the data more memorable and accurate or whether it skews our perception of the numbers. This Ted talk has lots of good examples of this https://www.ted.com/talks/david_mccandless_the_beauty_of_data_visualization
Great video!
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Hi Julie! I love that you chose this topic and you presented it very well. Infographics are very important, as many people responded way better to visual data than plain numbers. Infographics are a way to display the story the data tells for everyone to be able to read and understand. Infographics can also be tricky and overwhelming. You did a great job breaking them down into four steps that people can follow to help them in their journey to creating better infographics. You also chose very strong visuals in your presentation, which made it interesting to look at, and also expanded on the points you were making in your story. I liked that you showed examples of what a bad infographic looks like. In your presentation, you did a great job of making it clear what the mistakes are and how to avoid them. I think if you added in some examples of well-done infographics, it could also help the viewer see what to strive for. Additionally, I thought it was great that you also added in the danger of infographics spreading misinformation. People often believe what they see in infographics, without double-checking the data themselves. This can lead to a lot of confusion and distrust as the misinformation spreads. It is very important to make sure your data is correct and that your graphics are not misleading or misrepresenting the topic. I like that you brought this up in your presentation and would like to see you expand on it even more in your essay. Overall, your presentation was great, you spoke clearly, had strong graphics, and broke down your topic so that people could easily follow along. I would have liked to see a bit more about how infographics tell a story, at the end of your presentation, but as you had to fit a lot of information into a small amount of time, you did a great job. I look forward to seeing how you expand on this topic even more in your essay!
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Julie–
What a great presentation. You divided your information thoroughly and it helped the pace of the overall video because it did not feel like five minutes had gone by!
I completely agree that knowing who your audience is should be every designer’s or creator’s top priority. You can’t have a text-heavy infographic aimed at elementary students and vise-versa.
Your visual numbers assignment was probably my favorite submission that week so I love that you referenced it during your presentation to elaborate on creative methods such as the sunburst effect.
The canned food vs. dry food graphic (while not pretty to look at) is unfortunately something I see a lot of in working at a school district. Every department and campus thinks they need to include every detail about their event or announcement while not considering the look of the overall flier or post.
As we’ve learned these last few weeks, type and color play such a large role in defining the look and feel of a visual and I hope you’ll go more into that for your final paper.
You did such a great job on your presentation, I can’t wait to see how you create your infographic this week!
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