Making effective infographics is an iterative process, involving a writer or editor and a designer working together. trying to be too close to real life – audiences can often more quickly and readily recognise a cartoon icon than a real-life drawing of the same object, and visuals don’t need to be realistic to prompt the audience to think of a certain thing for example, younger computer users recognise the ‘save’ symbol even though they have never used a floppy disk.too much text – reading large blocks of text slows the reader’s interaction with the infographic and weakens the overall message brief, effective text that matches the graphics works better.too many messages – trying to cover all details of the concept will result in a busy and confusing infographic instead, focus on the key message you want your audience to understand, which might mean omitting some details, simplifying complex ideas or breaking ideas down into several parts.What is not an effective infographic?Ĭontent creators can fall into the trap of wanting an infographic to enliven their work without thinking about what they want to say or what the infographic aims to achieve. a message, to help readers understand an idea or concept.Īn effective infographic is clear and engaging, it means the audience says ‘Now I get it!’.a process, to explain at a glance how a process works.data, to tell a story with data when a graph is not engaging enough or cannot present enough information.Infographics combine text and visual information to engage the audience and help them understand complex concepts. They can be a powerful communication tool when created and used strategically but done badly or for the wrong reasons, they are an expensive waste of time and effort. We found that the ‘dwell time’ – how long users spent looking at something – was more than 10 times greater for the infographic than for the text.īut infographics aren’t always the answer. The test showed that the infographics we developed to convey some of the report’s key messages really captured users’ attention. The power of infographics was shown in an eye-tracking test for the National State of the Environment Report. But you need words and numbers to communicate precise information.īy combining these elements, infographics can give us the best of both worlds, and engage audiences more effectively than text alone. Colourful images are great for grabbing attention. We’ve all heard the phrase ‘a picture paints a thousand words’.

Infographic show staff