Introduction to Infographics

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) outlines some important tips to keep in mind when creating your infographic. They write that the main way in which public communication of data differs from academic contexts is the way in which the research findings are presented. Most scholarly material includes lengthy background information, describing the methods and processes used with plenty of detail. Results and conclusions are only ever reported at the very end of a study paper. 

When communicating with the public, the AAAS says you should flip this process! By leading with the bottom line, and why this finding is important, you can engage with a broader audience. Supporting details and methodologies can be used to strengthen the validity of the findings, but aren’t the main focus! 

So how do we implement the AAAS’ recommendations? By understanding the parts that make up infographics, you can start to imagine how to illustrate your ideas. Infographics then are usually made up of three important pieces; 

• Visuals (colours, typography, graphics, etc.) 

• Content (Data, facts, statistics, etc.) 

• Knowledge (Your insight and perspective) 

Depending on the subject matter and the context of its data, we can split infographics even further into two categories; 

• Qualitative (This data reflects opinions, emotions, preferences, etc) 

• Quantitative (This data reflects measurable facts, statistics, and observations) 

Some material above has been sourced from https://sites.google.com/view/creating-infographics/deconstructing-infographics?authuser=0 

Writing out any of your textual content is a great place to start with your project!  

It may be helpful to use a Google Doc or Word Document to start collecting your primary research and organizing the main text or general informational content that you hope to use in your infographic. Even if you only expect to use a small amount of text in the final product, writing out your main ideas can help you determine the most important parts of your research content and data.  

 Keeping a list of your references and the main ideas you hope to express will keep you organized and focused on creating clear and concise infographics. Remember though! Less is more! Be sure to provide enough data that your viewers can get a strong overview of your topic, but try not to overwhelm them!  

Once you’ve written the main textual components of your infographic, you can start determining how your data can be best expressed as a visual or graphic! If you’re dealing with a lot of quantitative data, you may want to make use of a graph or chart to get your ideas across! If you’re working with qualitative data, pairing icons and imagery with concise, engaging, text can be more effective!  

Like most creative projects, collaboration may be an important part of developing your infographic! In order to receive feedback, edit, share notes, and work collaboratively, you may want to make use of shareable word processors like Google Docs and Microsoft Word to create your initial drafts! You may also want to use video conferencing software like Zoom, Google Meet, or Microsoft Teams, or you may want to draft ideas and visualizations in brainstorming software like Miro, or Jamboard!  

Collaborative documents help you and your team members stay updated, see what design choices have been made, revise typos or inaccuracies, and establish simple peer review processes. Determining what changes need to be made, who should make them, and by what metric you decide the work is finished are all important steps to working collaboratively! 

Creating a visualization is a step-by-step process. Remember to ask others to review your work and provide feedback to improve it.