ERS 210 Chapter Notes - Chapter 9: Infographic, Pie Chart, Children'S Book Council Of Australia
18 Oct 2016
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Infographics: The Power of Visual Storytelling Week 7.2
Chapter 9 – Information Design Best Practices
- Narrative Infographics tend to use a more illustrative design
- Explorative Infographics need to represent an unbiased view of the data and
have little use for illustration
- If you are able to find a good balance between narrative and explorative
infographic designs you may be able to use components from each type to
represent your data.
- Illustrations are complex additions to an infographic and their use is debated
frequently.
o The appropriateness of use will vary based on the information that is
being presented, as well as the audience.
o Commonly people debate about the importance/how useful
illustrations really are.
o Ask these two questions:
▪ Are the illustrations appropriate for use in an infographic?
▪ Are the illustrative design elements used n a specific
infographic of good quality?
o Remember, it’s all about the information.
▪ This is the most important part of the infographic, NOT the
illustrations.
▪ Ask yourself:
• What role do the illustrations play? How is it
useful/helpful?
• Are they distracting?
o They should be more supportive to the data
opposed to leading.
o They also should support the story the data is
telling.
▪ If illustrations are not used properly they can be harmful to the
interpretation and representation of data.
▪ Information should always be presented first, with illustrations
after.
o Don’t confuse appropriateness with quality. There are two important
things to remember:
▪ Audience appropriateness: who you are addressing will impact
your illustration decisions/choices.
▪ Content appropriateness
o Good data that the designer understands is crucial to someone
creating a good infographic
o Subjects with high sensitivity associated with them (i.e. HIV/AIDS)
should be handled with care – these illustrations can sometimes cause
more harm than good.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Narrative infographics tend to use a more illustrative design. Explorative infographics need to represent an unbiased view of the data and have little use for illustration. If you are able to find a good balance between narrative and explorative infographic designs you may be able to use components from each type to represent your data. How is it useful/helpful: are they distracting, they should be more supportive to the data opposed to leading, they also should support the story the data is telling. If illustrations are not used properly they can be harmful to the interpretation and representation of data. Information should always be presented first, with illustrations after: don"t confuse appropriateness with quality. Not having a zero baseline (note: time does not have to be zero). You should have the dots at specified intervals. X-axis should always represent time, and the y-axis should represent a quantitative value that changes over time.
