What Makes a Good Infographic?

January 2012 - Steven Key

Unless you’re a mathematician (or masochist) no-one likes having to wade through endless data and statistics to get to the information you need. If only there was a more interesting way of getting to the story behind the numbers…

Infographics take complex information and data sets, and make them easy to digest in a visually stimulating design. They aim to be a unique and interesting form of “data visualisation” (or “data viz” if you want to be down with the kids.) The Internet is stuffed with information and the infographic helps visualise that information simply, accurately and clearly.

Design trends come and go but infographics are here to stay. Brands like The Guardian, Google and The NY Times use them regularly. Even President Obama can’t get enough of them (http://www.whitehouse.gov/auto-industry-resurgence). All sorts of organisations are using infographics to build their brands, educate their audience and drive traffic to their sites. And since infographics show information in such a highly shareable bite-sized format you can also use social media to spread your message far and wide.¹

The best infographics are “simple enough to read but creative enough that to make you look twice.” So what’s the best way to go about making sure your infographic stands out from the crowd?

Be Obvious: Your infographic should demonstrate key ideas clearly and concisely. It can show other facts and information but don’t let the main conclusion of the data get lost in the shuffle. Think about what you’re showing and what you really want to focus on.

Be Helpful: It shouldn’t need a Statistics degree to understand your infographic so make sure you build your data and explanation right into the heart of the graphic. Put simply, if your readers need more than a few seconds to understand your infographic, it’s no good!

Be Honest:  Don’t bend the data to better suit your conclusion or design. Cite your data sources and allow readers to dig deeper into the data if they want to. It’s just like they told you at school, “always show your working.”

Be Clear: Design isn’t just about making things pretty. It’s about making things work, and in the case of infographics, that means representing data accurately and clearly. When creating infographics spend the time to properly analyse and understand the data because then the really interesting story behind the numbers and spreadsheets will shine through.

For the last couple of years infographics with little substance still made an impact simply because they were something new and fashionable. Now you need to try a little harder. Put in the time to think about the story you want to tell and show some clear insight. The point of infographics is to help the reader to understand the data, show the hidden patterns and make complex ideas easily understandable.

And if they just so happen to look beautiful then that’s the cherry on top.

¹ http://www.marketingcharts.com