A Couple Designers Discuss Infographics

In 2013, infographics have reached a peak in popularity. According to Graphs.net, infographic search volume increased by 800 percent from 2010 to 2012. Infographics have stabilized as part of the information ecosystem.

Last week, I casually posed this question to a couple of our designers: what do you think of infographics? The conversation that followed was full of insight.

What Our Designers Have to Say

The first response I received after asking two of our designers, A and J, what they thought of inforgraphics was A’s prescient, “Oh god, here we go.” And go they did. Ultimately, they agreed on the core points, but their discussion brought up a lot of food for thought on the function of the infographic.

A:

They’re an excellent introduction to a subject through the visualization of factual content that is often being presented in comparison with an alternative. However, infographics do not offer any deep understanding of a subject because of the limitation imposed by the requirement to visualize the subject. More abstract ideas are better served by the written word or by mathematic expression.

That being said, infographics can cause a more emotional or relative understanding of a subject, such as in the case of spreading awareness of a humanitarian effort. Infographics are also excellent for promoting a subject or product, because they are more accessible than written words and perhaps because they stimulate more channels of sensory input (color, form, cognition) than the written word or a mathematic expression alone.

I believe that infographics, with their ability to make a swift and simple yet factual impression, can be an essential part of any effort to educate or inform the general public, which is often left with little time to meet the demanding deadlines of the modern world let alone continually learn new things.

J:

I’m not sure that I agree with “More abstract ideas are better served by the written word or by mathematic expression.”

More abstract ideas are more challenging to display visually, but by grouping information and asking oneself “What is the main thing this infographic is supposed to communicate?” and “What are 1-2 second-tier things it needs to communicate?” one can still explain complex information. It is just a matter or compacting information to its core and showing that visually.

It’s sort of like an elevator pitch one would give to get a job, in which one defines themselves in a sentence or two. It’s not meant to explain the whole person but to hit on their highlights and remove extra information that distracts from the key message(s) trying to be communicated.

My only pet peeve is when the design is simply eye candy, and the data is lost or hard to understand. For example, in this infographic on gender and higher education, it’s not easy to compare data amongst fields, and this one is pretty, but do you know what’s going on?

I personally think that the key to good design, especially with infographics, is clarity and ease of understanding. The best infographics can be understood, for the most part, regardless of the viewer’s language. This is incredibly vital in the U.S. and other countries where the average reading level of the citizenry is 6th grade or lower.

A:

Yes, that is exactly what I was saying, but you cleared it up and added to it the fact that one can introduce a complex or abstract subject; that is totally correct.

My only reservation with some infographics is that, while it is nice to get all that information up front, information needs to be condensed and targeted, like you said. BUT, when condensed, some information might be lost in the translation or obscured by over-simplifying it. You can’t show how an atom interacts with another atom through visual example, because the laws of the universe just don’t work that way. For instance, atoms cannot be shown to interact like a rubber band, because a rubber band is made of atoms and is affected by many other physical laws that are irrelevant to the very property you are trying to illustrate. It’s a common problem faced by text book writers and the school system that illustrating these concepts can often worsen the true understanding of the subject.

J:

I get what you are saying. I would just like to point out that I personally believe that infographics are not meant to replace the “meat” of a subject.

They are more like an overview that you include with an article or book, so simple pieces of a larger concept are covered.

But, yeah, reading an infographic doesn’t make you an expert. I have met many people who think it does. For one of those people, I made an infographic on the information he was missing out on by not reading and diving deeper. He wasn’t happy about this at first, but he started reading books more. Some of this is just people being busy, I think, and some is people being lazy or just wanting to say buzz words with no depth. Those negatives aside, I think, for people outside an industry, it’s just an example.

A:

I love that you did that! That’s the power of infographics.