Bevil Wood­ing

Da­ta vi­su­al­iza­tion is an in­creas­ing­ly pop­u­lar way of pre­sent­ing com­plex in­for­ma­tion. In the past two years alone in­fo­graph­ic search vol­umes have in­creased by over 800%. The pop­u­lar­i­ty of In­fo­graph­ics has in­creased with the rise of so­cial me­dia, and by its at­trac­tive­ness to mar­keters, busi­ness­es and ed­u­ca­tors seek­ing to pro­vide con­tent in at­trac­tive, bite-size serv­ings.

Telling A Vi­su­al Sto­ry

In­fo­graph­ics, the short­ened name for in­for­ma­tion-graph­ics, pro­vide a sim­ple way of telling a com­plex sto­ry. For any­one work­ing with sta­tis­tics, re­ports, mar­ket­ing or in­for­ma­tion pre­sen­ta­tion at any lev­el, in­fo­graph­ics will be an in­creas­ing­ly im­por­tant el­e­ment of your pro­fes­sion­al com­mu­ni­ca­tions.

In­fo­graph­ics are es­sen­tial­ly vi­su­al rep­re­sen­ta­tions of da­ta facts or knowl­edge us­ing graph­i­cal aids. In­fo­graph­ics typ­i­cal­ly present com­plex in­for­ma­tion in a sim­ple for­mat, em­bell­ished by charts, icons and the strate­gic use of col­or and fonts. Da­ta vi­su­al­iza­tion is the process of cre­at­ing in­fo­graph­ics.

Since 90 per­cent of the in­for­ma­tion trans­mit­ted to the hu­man brain is vi­su­al, in­ter­act­ing with da­ta vi­su­al­ly helps peo­ple make deep­er con­nec­tions with that in­for­ma­tion. By us­ing graph­ics, da­ta vi­su­al­iza­tion tech­niques can help im­prove cog­ni­tion and en­hance how view­ers dis­cern pat­terns and trends in da­ta.

In­for­ma­tion is Key

Most or­ga­ni­za­tions have to deal del­uge of in­for­ma­tion on a dai­ly ba­sis. Whether it is pack­ag­ing fi­nan­cial in­for­ma­tion for the board; pre­sent­ing mar­ket trends for man­age­ment team; or ex­plain­ing how things work for a class; in­fo­graph­ics of­fer a quite ver­sa­tile pre­sen­ta­tion for­mat to to­day's in­for­ma­tion work­ers. Sill, con­vey­ing in­for­ma­tion re­mains the pri­or­i­ty. With da­ta vi­su­al­iza­tion, graph­ics are sim­ply used to present da­ta more clear­ly.

The in­fo­graph­ics that tend to work the best are the ones that present da­ta in a re­al­ly in­ter­est­ing way. Defin­ing your mes­sage and de­vel­op­ing the de­sign con­cept to con­vey it, is most im­por­tant. Con­sid­er all the in­for­ma­tion that is rel­e­vant to your sub­ject. Be sure to prop­er­ly re­search the da­ta thor­ough­ly, us­ing rep­utable sources. Once you have a con­cept, you need to find the in­for­ma­tion and fig­ure out the best way to rep­re­sent it.

The good thing is that you do not nec­es­sar­i­ly need to hire a pro­fes­sion­al graph­ic artist to cre­ate and ef­fec­tive in­fo­graph­ic. In fact a lot of in­fo­graph­ics do not even fea­ture fan­cy art­work. Of­ten a com­bi­na­tion of clip art, charts, easy-to-read fonts and a few car­toon-like im­ages are enough.

The Fu­ture of Da­ta Vi­su­al­iza­tion

Like most things in to­day's tech­nol­o­gy dri­ven world, the da­ta vi­su­al­iza­tion are­na to rapid­ly evolv­ing. In­ter­ac­tive da­ta vi­su­al­iza­tions are emerg­ing as a means of giv­en view­ers the op­por­tu­ni­ty to in­ter­act with the pre­sent­ed da­ta. This is a whole new lev­el above the "tra­di­tion­al" in­fo­graph­ic, al­low­ing a view­er to drill fur­ther in­to sec­tions of in­ter­est in the da­ta on their own. Spe­cial pro­gram­ming tools and on­line re­sources such as vi­sua.ly.

A world of op­por­tu­ni­ty awaits the cre­ative in­di­vid­u­als and or­ga­ni­za­tions will­ing to in­vest in the grow­ing da­ta vi­su­al­iza­tion mar­ket. The New York Times has a group in its graph­ics de­part­ment ded­i­cat­ed to on­line in­ter­ac­tive. De­sign stu­dios are al­so catch­ing on to da­ta vi­su­al­iza­tion move­ment. Re­search labs, aca­d­e­m­ic in­sti­tu­tions and cor­po­rate mar­ket­ing units are al­so start­ing to re­alise the val­ue of in­fo­graph­ics, and look­ing for the re­sources to help meet the grow­ing need.

Not every­one needs a full-time da­ta vi­su­al­iza­tion re­source though. So free­lance de­sign­ers, de­vel­op­ers and in­for­ma­tion an­a­lysts can all ex­plore the lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al op­por­tu­ni­ties to ser­vice the glob­al de­mand.

They say a pic­ture is worth a thou­sand words. Why not be­gin telling your vi­su­al sto­ry to­day?

Bevil Wood­ing is the Chief Knowl­edge Of­fice of Con­gress WBN (www.con­gress­wbn.org), a val­ues-based in­ter­na­tion­al non-prof­it. He is al­so Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor of Bright­Path Foun­da­tion, an ed­u­ca­tion-tech­nol­o­gy non-prof­it (www.bright­path­foun­da­tion.org). Fol­low on Twit­ter: @bevil­wood­ing or at: face­book.com/bevil­wood­ing or con­tact via email at tech­nol­o­gy­mat­ters@bright­pathf-un­da­tion.org