How to Design an Effective Infographic

Part one of our infographic series appeared yesterday.

Effective, eye catching infographics take complex data sets and morph them into a visual stories that enhance our understanding. Bad infographics propagate confusion. If you need to hire a web designer with infographics experience, keep in mind that professional web design company will know the essential elements of designing a golden infographic.

1. Show vs. Tell—The magic of a good infographic is that it skips over mumbo-jumbo, getting to the meat of an idea visually, thus broadening its potential audience and the audiences’ understanding of the message. Hire a web designer with a portfolio of infographics that use data to tell great stories visually.
2. Simplicity—Too much data and overly-busy graphics kill comprehension, which is the whole point of infographics. If you have a complex idea to convey, step back and break it down into its essential elements. Instead of trying to cram everything into one big infographic, a set of simpler infographics would work better. Each one should illuminate one of the main ideas while flowing gracefully into the next infographic.
3. Good Design—Tom Wujec, a fellow at Autodesk who studies the way people absorb and use graphical information, explains that the eye sends visual signals directly to the primary visual cortex in the back of the brain. This area decides where to channel the information next (a possible 30 other areas of the brain) based only on basic geometric, spatial and color data. A professional web design company will be able to create a simple infographic that ignites “Ah-ha moments” for your audience through basic, good design practices.
4. Fact Checking—Nothing damages credibility more than getting your facts wrong, and since facts are the meat of a good infographic, you have to make doubly sure they are correct. It doesn’t matter how pretty the infographic is if it’s wrong.
5. Smaller File Size = Bigger Audience—Smaller file sizes make it much easier to share an infographic across more platforms and a wider audience, be it social media, email, print or smartphones. Download times are faster, which also decreases the annoyance factor for the end viewer (always good). Committing to a smaller file size also reminds you and your web designers to keep it simple and use good design practices.

Infographics aren’t new; people have been making pie charts and bar graphs for decades. As the information age continues at break-neck pace, however, making the data tell a story quickly, accurately and beautifully has never been more important.

Tags: designing infographics, hire a web designer, professional web design company

This entry was posted on Monday, September 17th, 2012 at 11:00 pm and is filed under Design Resources. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.