Have you ever been transfixed by looking at colorful pie charts and histograms that are often displayed by leading news channels, or in a magazine? Most of them try to educate viewers about information related to social-economical-political matters but they present such dry and boring details in style! They make use of brilliant visuals to transform boredom into curiosity. These colorful elements are known as ‘infographics’
Be it television or websites, infographics play a crucial role. Here’s how you can design your own:
Don’t Create Mere Bar Graphs, Opt for a Makeover! – In school, you were asked to create histograms to show the annual grocery consumption of your family. Then, infographics is not simply about creating a few bars, illustrations, lines or diagrams. If that had been the case, then multinational corporations would have only depended on MS Excel, right? Then, there would have been no need to hire graphic artists!
Designing infographics is more about decorating traditional tables or linear presentations to attract customer attention. It is the makeover of histograms and pie charts so that users are able to process info easily. All depends on how you present boring facts and turn them into a visual feast!
Delight Visually, Don’t Teach! – The primary objective is to make the information understandable in a short period of time which is not possible to accomplish with black and white text. Don’t make it look like a boring chapter from your school’s history book! Make little use of words and include more vivid charts, maps, photos and other visual components.
Do Away with Jargons – Whether you are targeting a large audience base or a small one, technical terms, phrases and complicated visuals put visitors off. Use info and visuals elements that are easier to comprehend. Your audience could be stressed out executives, busy doctors, bored lawyers, impatient teenagers and hurrying moms.
You need to deliver the message quickly and effectively. Being simple is the key to success so that users are not left to ponder what you are trying to communicate.
Narrate an Interesting Tale – You should give reason to people to stop and take a look at your design. The details that are displayed should narrate to customers an interesting tale about your business and products. Use data, color and graphics intelligently so that they blend well to convey something appealing. Customers should feel that they are reading an interesting story, and not some drab content!
Truly a well researched and well thought-out article! The way the information presented was quite interesting. A quality read! I specially like the discussion about avoiding jargons in infographics. The examples cited are practical. Truly a stressed executive or a busy housewife will like visuals and data that are simpler to understand. Nobody likes information that has difficult terminologies. I will ask my friends to read this post. Great job!