Week 9 Discussion Post

October 23, 2014

After reading this week’s readings, answer:

  • Why are infographics important to design?
  • Why do you think their popularity has grown?
  • Must use one additional outside source as a citation in your post.
  • Insert 3 of your favorite infographics into your post. (Hint: Pinterest or searching Google images are great resources). MAKE SURE YOUR IMAGES ARE WORKING!

After this week’s readings, it’s still very clear to me that infographics are an amazing part of design and communication. As someone who is a datahound, having information that’s easy to understand and digest, but also share up and out to stakeholders and leadership via infographics is great.

The below is a graphic that’s updated regularly and I’ve used several times to levelset the world wide web and how our organization compares with senior leadership:

60 Seconds - Things That Happen On Internet Every Sixty Seconds

In my newspaper classes undergrad work, we learned that USA Today helped drive consumer engagement and demand through their goal of using charts, graphs, and color. I think as users have become more interested in information and data, the ability and ease to digest, interpret and make relevant this information has become both of interest personally and professionally. The recent trend of health apps for smartphones and wearable technology, such as FitBit, all contribute to the collection, aggregation and presentation of data to the end-user in digestible formats.

As consumer interests have evolved, so has the scale and scope of infographics. As recently as last week, I shared an infographic I received from Clean The World about the importance of washing hands, which felt very timely given the recent ebola outbreaks, while also speaking to their mission and goal of recycling soap to third-world countries.

Finally, I came across this infographic earlier this year on the history of Apple products, which illustrates the history of Apple’s product line, for example, did you know the iPad wasn’t their first venture into consumer tablets?

Again, I love infographics. My only challenge/concern has been their timeliness of data. Unless it’s for a completed assignment or project, an infographic can easily become dated or out-of-date. Even the above graphic is dated given the announcements by Apple in the past two months and recent years.

Overall, infographics are a great way to communicate simple and complex data, in a fun, engaging way that educates the reader and illustrates a concept, strategy or idea.

Post Tags:

Design, Digital Layout, Infographics, VIC5325,