Strong Infographics Start with Design

People remember pictures. Several research studies have demonstratedthis to be true (for example, see Grady, et al, in References). It’s especiallytrue that, when a person sees something briefly, that individual is more likelyto remember a picture than words or text.

Learners’ affinity for visual images provides a convincingreason for eLearning designers to incorporate lots of visuals into theircontent; infographics are a great way to do this. But it’s also true thatlearners are increasingly likely to access eLearning on a plethora ofdevices—including smartphones, which offer a small screen and thus a difficultcanvas for infographics. 

Meeting these conflicting goals—providing visual, engaging,and memorable content, and offering that content in ways that more learners canand will use—calls for a careful design strategy.

Designers need a three-pronged approach to creating successfuleLearning infographics:

1. Be judicious in choosing topics for infographicsand other visuals, and have a clear goal in mind
2. Use an appropriate format to meet that goal
3. Apply responsive design and other best practicesto ensure that the infographics are useful to mobile learners

Create compelling infographics

Since humans are so strongly wired to process visualinformation, infographics can be a powerful way to teach some concepts orpresent some information. According to Eugene Woo, founder of Visualize.me and Venngage,using more infographics can dramatically increase website traffic andengagement.

So, when should designers add an infographic—or evensubstitute an infographic for a text-heavy explanation? Woo recommends a goal-focusedapproach to creating infographics, and he uses what he calls the “ICCORE”method to identify the goal of the infographic. A clear understanding of thegoal leads the designer to choose the best format. His question—“What do wewant readers to achieve when they see the visual [the infographic]?”—can beanswered with one of six possible goals, whose initial letters form ICCORE:

• Inform: Convey message or data point
• Compare: Compare parts or things
• Change: Show changes or trends over timeor space
• Organize: Show groups, patterns, rank, ororder
• Relationships: Show relationships betweenthings
• Explore: Engage readers in exploring dataand figuring out insights

Choose the most appropriate format

Understanding the goal of the infographic is essential tochoosing the most appropriate format, Woo said. Some visual presentation formats,like charts and graphs, are ideal for comparing or showing relationships orpresenting survey data. Venn diagrams, scatter plots, and word clouds also showrelationships. To convey information, Woo suggests using large titles withpictograms and labels; maps or timelines compare data or illustrate change overtime. Use a pyramid to show hierarchy; a bubble chart can illuminate relativesize or impact. A series of panels can demonstrate the steps of a simpleprocess, and a labeled diagram can teach the parts of a whole while showinglearners how those parts fit together. To get learners to explore a topic, Woosuggests interactive maps or diagrams or “layered” graphics that allow learnersto drill down—for instance, presenting national data on the top layer, thenstate, then county or city data, as the learner clicks on deeper layers.

You can present the same data in different ways, but eachsends learners a different message or emphasizes different aspects of the data.This series of infographics on military spending from The Guardian showshow to use a single data set to focus on several different details. Forexample, if two populations share some characteristics but differ on others, aVenn diagram can emphasize areas of overlap, while a chart is useful tohighlight contrasts or areas of disagreement.

The bar chart in Figure 1 compares the number of USadults who own each type of electronic device. (Data from Pew Research Center, “Technology Device Ownership: 2015”; see References.)

Figure 1: Ownershipof electronic devices

In Figure 2, the stacked Venn diagram shows the relationshipbetween smartphone ownership and cellphone ownership. Smartphone owners are asubset of cellphone owners; that is, every smartphone is also a cellphone, butsome adults have cellphones that are not smartphones.

Figure 2: Smartphone ownership as a subset ofcellphone ownership

Design for mobile

Learners are bombarded with information and often have toabsorb new material quickly. This is an area where visuals are particularlyhelpful. A neuroimaging study tested participants on images and text that theysaw quickly, without the opportunity to think about it or relate it to otherknowledge; they remembered pictures better than they remembered words. Thusmobile environments—more conducive to performance support, reference materials,or “job aids” that learners reference on the go—could be an area whereinfographics would be useful to learners.

When seeking to present information visually while alsoensuring that eLearning is mobile-friendly, designers must acknowledge that notall infographics will work on mobile. That said, “mobile-friendly infographic”is not an oxymoron; in fact, careful design can result in effective, engaging infographicsthat work on many platforms, including smartphones. 

All infographics, for any medium, start with the basicelements: a great topic, solid data, and strong visuals. When designers createresponsive designs, their infographics will adjust for display on any platformwithout forcing learners to zoom or scroll. But, responsive design or not,designers creating infographics for mobile devices must pay extra attention todetails, such as:

• Grid-based modular design: Anticipatemobile use by creating a design in blocks that can appear horizontally or stackvertically—when learners view the infographic on a smartphone, they will viewthe blocks in sequence. It might help to think of each block as a panel, as ina comic strip. Design each block to be appealing and legible at the size of atypical smartphone screen; many templates exist to help designers get thecorrect size and proportion. Remember that each block is, essentially, aseparate infographic that will scale as a single unit; elements within a blockwill not be resized individually or repositioned for display on a mobilescreen.
• Minimal text: Using templates or mock-upsdesigned for smartphones can help test the legibility of text at small sizes. Aresponsively designed infographic will scale—as a block—to fit the display; ifthis results in six-point text, the infographic is not mobile-friendly. Limitthe number of words per screen, and add more blocks or panels if needed.
• Appropriate fonts: Use no more than twotypefaces, and choose clear, simple, scalable fonts that complement each other.Fonts with serifs or other decorative elements are hard to read in small sizes.
• Icons: Add icons to enhance text—orreplace text with icons in scaled-down versions of an infographic. Building thedesign so that some elements and text are removed when the display shrinksmakes an infographic more mobile-friendly.
• Color: Choose colors wisely; thecombination and contrast of colors affects learners’ comprehension. Color andcontrast can strengthen the visual impact; changing one line of a chart to a contrastingcolor effectively highlights important information, for example.
• Breathing room: Don’t crowd the elements;leave space in the infographic and around the margins. Woo recommends at least30 percent “negative” or uncluttered space.

A designer who struggles with one or more of theseguidelines might rethink the approach: Can the infographic be used to representa smaller part of the data? Can multiple panels or infographics be used? Isthis concept better taught using text or a different format, like flash cardsor a game? Is it possible to swap the infographic for text or a different setof visuals for mobile learners?

The bottom line is that the eLearning is only effective iflearners use it. And, while more learners want to access eLearning on theirsmartphones, they are unlikely to engage with content that forces them to squintand scroll to decipher it.

References

Anderson, Monica. “Technology Device Ownership: 2015.” Pew Research Center. 29 October 2015.

Grady, Cheryl L., Anthony R. McIntosh, M. Natasha Rajah, andFergus I.M. Craik. “Neural correlates of the episodic encoding of pictures and words.” Proceedingsof the National Academy of Sciences, Vol.95, No. 5. April 1998.

McCandless, David. “Information is beautiful: war games.” The Guardian. 1 April 2010.