Captions should give more than just obvious label information.Ī brief summation of a series of infographics or a report is an important tool when creating effective communication design. Write informative titles with smaller subtitles to give more detail if necessary.Ĭaptions can be a very important device to draw readers in, give extra information and explain diagrams, or charts in more detail. Titles of infographics should help to tell the story. From the title of a table or a chart, to explanations, summaries and other details, the writer and graphic designer must work with the same goal and common understandings. The full integration of writing and design of infographics is essential. These observations about how we read infographics come from “Good Charts: The Harvard Business Review Guide to Data Visualization” by Scott Berinato Good charts coalesce complex data into clear ideas. A bad infographic will make a reader parse information more than necessary. A good infographic should help the reader make a “short cut”. Solution: Embrace these conventions, flouting them may cause confusion. Light shades are empty, darker shades often mean full or dense. Red means hot, active or alarm, blue means cool or established, green means safe or good. Colour understandings too, are often based on a general acceptance of beliefs. We use left to right to understand sequence. We understand importance through position such as high and low or top to bottom. We read from left to right, top to bottom. Conventions and traditions are powerful forces in reading and understanding. Do not make mistaken, unimportant or irrelevant connections by colour, clusters, proximity or positions.ĥ. ![]() Solution: Be very conscious of visual cues that cause connections or links. Patterns, groupings, alignments, and similarities will send messages about relationships. Readers will seek meaning and try to make connections. Decorative shadings or 3D effects just add clutter and confusion.Ĥ. Use only the correct amount of info, no more. Solution: Judiciously edit every element. More than eight colours, or too many variables will cause overwhelm or confusion We can only see and understand a limited number of things at once. Use restraint and editing to make the most important information easy to understand.ģ. Solution: Align visual emphasis with the key message to be communicated. Large titles or headlines, a peak or valley in a chart, bright colours, density of graphics, intersection points, outliers, graphics, and arrows all attract the eye. Readers are attracted to different emphatic signals. Predictable design will make it easier to understand.Ģ. Solution: Use hierarchies, clear differences, editing and layout to guide the reader. Unlike a written report where readers know to start at the top left and read across and down, with a chart or graphic, a reader’s eyes flit from title, key, plotted statistics, axes, explanations and summaries etc. We don’t read charts in a predetermined sequence. We have created work-plan diagrams, icons, system maps, signage systems and detailed systems of tables, charts and graphs for a range of clients in different sectors.ġ. Infographics should tell stories and have a real purpose. Titles and explanations need to be in sync with labels and captions. Neat and tidy alignments are only part of good design. The most important idea is to understand that infographics need to be read easily to be understood. Solutions might look slick and organized, but upon further inspection, the real message is often lost. However, these auto-pilot programs often miss the important point of what really needs to be communicated. Recently, free tools to convert data into infographics have become readily available. Whether it is a map, diagram, chart or table, the conversion of larger concepts or dry statistics into legible “images” of typography with shapes, symbols, colours or aligning arrows, graphics and organizing rules (lines) is a sophisticated and subtle art form. ![]() Her work laid the foundation for professional and modern nursing. By creating detailed graphs of the statistics of wounded soldiers in the Crimean War, Nightingale was able to convince the British military of the need for more sanitary hospital conditions and better living conditions for soldiers. ![]() The most dramatic example of the use of infographics I can think of was by Florence Nightingale. They help understanding because of their ability to help us see patterns and trends more easily. Infographics are visual graphic presentations of data, information or knowledge intended to display that information clearly and quickly.
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