Infographics, Exploring Visual Information Design
Posters that explain to everyone on the job what management is doing month by month to (for example) purchase better quality of incoming materials from fewer suppliers, better maintenance, or to provide better training, or statistical aids and better supervision to improve quality, not by working harder but by working smarter, would be a totally different story: they would boost morale. People would then understand that the management is taking some responsibility for hangups and defects and is trying to remove obstacles. I have not yet seen any such posters.
— Dr. W. Edwards Deming on Motivation Posters
Visual information has the difficult task of revealing the vital essence of a situation without needless complexity. Needless is an important word in this context. The danger is over simplification will sacrifice insight into the situation. There is a dynamic tension between simplicity and insight which must be dealt with to qualify as more than graphical data.
We have thus incorporated within the humanistic field of technical communication a technique of visualizing information without adapting that technique to the humanities, without fully humanizing it.
— Sam Dragga and Dan Voss, Cruel Pies: The Inhumanity of Technical Illustrations; TechnicalCOMMUNICATION • Volume 48, Number 3, August 2001Insight into critical business issues suggests there be issues; defined by my dictionary as matters in need of resolution. A sales process diagram can stop at presenting the rough basics of doing homework, getting past gate keepers, and a general instruction to “sell.” Or it can display the hidden assumptions and dynamics below the surface. At the least this requires viewing the sales process completely, as coordinated with marketing, branding and even sales copy. Most of all, infographics should strive to communicate something of system dynamics humans actually work within. Dragga and Voss contend this is all too frequently missing, noting “We have thus incorporated within the humanistic field of technical communication a technique of visualizing information without adapting that technique to the humanities, without fully humanizing it.”
Infographics Need To Be As Simple As Possible. No Simpler
An infographic must first empower situation awareness. Personas and scenarios which form the basis for important design decisions during the project do not show up in diagrams. With diagrams, humans are abstractions with no purpose but to prove out the assumptions of the technology or data set, all for the primary purpose of simplicity.
Humanizing means infographics must take on the issues diagrams avoid — the point of Deming’s quote. The purpose of an infographic is helping the user make a better decision. Consequently products and technologies do not exist in a competitive vacuum, infographics must show advantage against competitors. An architectural cutaway must demonstrate how the store was designed for shopping, not simply to reveal stylistic details. A business process infographic would not only show the process, but how the process is flexible enough to respond to contingencies and build value. A diagram shows a merger. Information graphics show the way a merger is designed to address the challenges which make a merger successful. A diagram reveals business silos. Infographic design must show how silos are bridged or dismantled.
…I looked at all the fancy architecture magazines. None had any pictures of people inside buildings. The buildings were all devoid of people. And most still are. We put people inside the spaces they inhabit. We inserted people into the conversation of their lives. Now, smart architects engage the masses in their designs. They hire firms who do social geography, showing how people really interact in organizations, not what their titles suggest. Informed with this information, they design spaces.
— Are Designers The Enemy Of Design? by Bruce Nussbaum
Infographic design is interface design. And just like software, infographic designers test with users like interaction designers test software. Diagrams are designed to be viewed. Infographics are designed to be acted on.
There may be any number of issues for an infographic to explore in a specific business situation. The sales process issues may be…
- Quickly communicate the proper mind set and challenges for each phase of the sales cycle
- Shift from closing sales to opening a relationship required by customer relationship managment models (No CRM software required)
- Shift the business view of sales people as passive consumers of top–down business policies to front line designer of the company’s interface with the customer
- A convenient way to group ideas (using roles) for ease of understanding and recall
No sales person wants to remember lists of policy directives. However, role play is something many sales people practice. Using this sales tool the crucial points can be grouped into the roles of Detective, Designer, Director, and Developer. Each phase of the sales cycle has its own character, for instance the beginning work of preparing for a sales call is not unlike detective work. Using the role of detective does suggest a certain frame of mind or context. Getting into the right role, it is easier to think up new techniques fitting that phase of the sales cycle. And it is the efficient communication of contexts all information workers, including infographic designers, should be interested in.
We are forced to take on a lot of different roles today. Many are unfamiliar, as with the reverse perspective of designers as sales people. The infographic can be a way to efficiently and simply communicate a context and gain a little perspective on what could be a confusing situation.
Contact Design Crux to develop your infographic today.
Resources
- An infographic related to this article explains how roles provide both focus and freedom for improvisation during the sales cycle.
Redesigning the food pyramid diagram seems simple, until you realize who built the pyramid has direct influence on how it looks. The USDA’s agenda concerns make classifying batter–dipped french fries as a fresh vegetable understandable. Consequently a sizable space in the infographic is dedicated to identify and design the rules, influences and systems driving the diagram people see. Step one would be voluntary guidelines for earning a product packaging designation, which helps user decisionmaking. The real barrier to information is an overriding concern for simplicity, “So, where did the original food pyramid go so wrong? In part, the people behind it fell victim to a desire to simplify their dietary recommendations, deciding it would be too difficult to educate the public about these subtleties. …The bottom line is that the food pyramid appears to have had little or no impact on the eating habits of the average American.” Making things as simple as possible serves users, making them simpler serves something else.- What some think of as an infographic is different from what the author of Are Graphic Artists Killing Newspapers thinks. The questions when evaluating infographics are 1)What ever happened to the data graphic? and 2)What makes for a good infographic?
- El Pais infographic directory is oft cited as an example of the infographic. Data describes, (an event, process, idea, a thing) and so do these diagrams. Everything in this directory is worthy of description, but that does not give it the richness of context information requires. With data graphics, the singular point is in such focus there is little context. (see examples below)
- Xplane straddles the infographics threshold. Keeping the focus on the human dimensions moves infographics over the threshold.
- In Are Designers The Enemy Of Design? Nussbaum contends architectural infographics should show real people and situations, not icons. Such detail is irrelevant to a simple diagram of technology function in a mechanical sense. Vital for understanding if technology is designed as if people matter.
- (The Minard Debate on ID Blog explains how human factors matter, and Re-Visions of Minard illustrates the difficulties.) If you have to ask where the human perspective is, chances are it should not be called an infographic.
- Timelines are rarely seen from two or more perspectives. There are rarely two or three approaches, or reasons, or groups. One business infographic showed a merger between two companies with different cultures as snap–together building blocks of business units. And therefore no representation (graphic or otherwise) of how differing corporate cultures tend to react to each other. Representing a merger as devoid of common challenges reduces transparency and underestimates what media savvy readers have access to.
- Robert E. Horn’s work covers the spectrum, from art to narrative. Horn also provides examples of information design techniques like information murals and the argumentation map in particular. Argumentation maps visualize threads of the claims, counterclaims and rational discussions around an issue. Once you’ve read that, check out the USA Today infographics directory, split the difference between these two extremes and you’ll understand where I suggest infographics should begin.
- Tufte makes the interesting comparison beween disinformation design and what magicians do.
- SIMULATION 101: Simulation versus Representation 2001 by Gonzalo Frasca. Although the examples are limited the premise is anything but. Representations are simplified versions of the topic. Simulations can present complex emergent properties from simple user interactions. The decisions offered and the choices made by the user create a narrative. A bit like interactive storytelling or Sim City meets editorial cartoon.