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What Is an Infographic? The History and
Evolution of Data Visualization
Daily
Infographic: 10.23.2017 by Anna
Whether you work in marketing, research,
education, or the non-profit sector, infographics are likely a part of your
everyday life. Even if your sector hasn’t jumped on the infographic bandwagon,
it is likely that you see infographics as you scroll through social media and
blogs.
Despite how widespread infographics are,
there is still confusion about what exactly qualifies as an infographic.
Definition of Infographic
According to Merriam Webster dictionary,
an infographic is defined as:
A chart, diagram, or illustration (as in
a book or magazine, or on a website) that uses graphic elements to present
information in a visually striking way.
If we go by this definition of an
infographic though, then virtually all types of visual information would be considered
an infographic.
Even signs like this one would be
considered an infographic.
While useful, we generally now
appreciate infographics to be more detailed and complex than a simple sign.
Wikipedia expands on the definition of
infographic by saying that,
Infographics are graphic visual representations
of information, data or knowledge intended to present complex information
quickly and clearly.
The key term here is complex
information. Hence why street signs aren’t considered infographics by modern
standards.
I also like how Venture Beat defines
infographic as a “Picture painted with data. Take a quick look and a story
emerges from numbers. Look more closely, and a complex narrative emerges from
dense clusters of information.”
Key Features of Infographics:
➧ Goal is to make large amounts of data
immediately understandable.
➧ Information can be quickly digested.
➧ Visually striking.
➧ Engaging.
All Infographics Contain:
➧ Content Almost all infographics use some
text to get the message across. However, there are some infographics – such as
the IKEA stick figures – which convey the message without any text.
➧ Visuals: The visuals need to be striking
and clearly convey the information.
➧ Knowledge: The goal of an infographic is
to convey information. Without knowledge, then it is just a graphic and not
infographic.
Types of Infographics
There are a lot of design and marketing
agencies that have broken down infographics into types. However, it is hard to find a consensus
amongst them.
As one designer points out, the breakdown
of infographic types depends on how you define the different between data,
information, and knowledge. These terms
are highly subjective, which explains why we still don’t have a widely-agreed upon
definition of infographic, nevertheless the types.
The Harvard Business Review guide Good
Charts lays out four types of infographics: declarative, conceptual,
exploratory, and data-driven. In this classification system, the types overlap
each other, such as declarative-exploratory.
However, I prefer the simpler breakdown
of infographic types by Column Five Media.
They define three main infographic types:
➧ Data visualization
➧ information design
➧ editorial infographics
[ with Key Features for each one with examples ]
═════════►
Why Infographics Are So Powerful
Long before humans invented alphabet
systems, they communicated with visuals.
The human brain is hardwired to process visual information, and it does
it much more efficiently than it processes text information.
Shortening Attention Span
Another reason that infographics are so
powerful in today’s era of the internet, is that they capture attention. Our attention spans have drastically
shortened because of the constant stimulus we receive. In this era of goldfish brains, learning
needs to be micro.
Infographics are one of the best ways to
present huge amounts of data in small bites, thus making them a very powerful
learning tool. They are also great for
marketers who want to get their message across as quickly as possible. Color visuals increase comprehension,
learning, and retention by over 73%. The
appeal lasts: Eye tracking research on news pages has shown that 87% of people
who saw an infographic also read the accompanying text, whereas only 41% read
the text of a typical page with heading and text.
Shareability
The key to having content go viral is to
make it shareable. Your readers see the
content and believe that sharing it makes them look good. They then want to share it with their friends,
coworkers, and grandparents. Visual
content is 40X more likely to get shared on social media than other types of
content (Buffer, 2014).
Infographic History Timeline
Prehistory and Early Civilization
We humans are visual thinkers, so it is
no surprise that infographics have been around since even before
civilization. The earliest examples of
infographics are arguably cave paintings which many experts believe were used
to communicate information about animals and hunting methods. There are also prehistoric examples of
constellations maps and land maps.
However, the combining of data and art didn’t develop until the 1600s.
1786
1800s
1900s
1990s to Early 2000s
2000s
The Infographic Today
Based on (7) readability formulas:
Grade
Level: 12
Reading
Level: difficult to read.
Reader's
Age: 17-18 yrs. Old
(Twelfth
graders)
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