Infographics
I believe in the importance of data visualisation, both because most people can more readily understand a visual representation than tables of numbers and because it is a useful language with which to communicate not just analysis but story. In other words, the challenge to appropriately visualise data or analysis, encourages the analyst to get closer to insights.
Anyway, I’ll blog more on that wider topic another time, for now I just wanted to share links to two agencies whose work on infographics have impressed me. If you’ve not come across them before, see if these spark any creative ideas…
There is always a risk that fashion obscures function, so I am aware of the risk that some people now equate data visualisation with infographics, which would also be a mistake in my book. So, as promised, more on data visualisation to following a later post, with the obligatory reference to Edward Tufte.
For now, please do feedback with your experience of infographics. Any tips?
I am a big believer that a picture is better than a thousand words…in the right hands! We recently tried presenting to our Exec a traditional customer profile infographic style and it bombed. Perhaps it was too much too soon. Perhaps it was the lack of decent graphics packages to come up with some good looking images.
I have sent a few of my analysts, and attended myself, the cheap and cheerful Guardian Masterclass in infographics. We also purchased a few books to stimulate ideas when creating them. All of the insight analysts took an objective to create atleast one infographic.
For me its about practice then appropriate use.
I agree, both that practice is needed and that we do not yet see a user friendly info graphics production package for most customer insight analysts. There is still a need for effective visualisations in graphs etc but it’s surely a gap in the market that no software enables an analyst to graph the optimal info graphic representation of his findings.