How to Create an Infographic - Part 1: What Makes a Good Infographic? – Transcript

00:10Hey guys, Paymon. And today, I want to actually start a new series about a beginner's guide to creating shareable infographics. I just recently did a three-part series about how to create compelling presentations. And of course, it's time to do one about infographics.

00:26Now the word infographics, just in the last five years, has skyrocketed and you kind of hear it and it is a big part of visual communication now. And so, I think it deserves its own series and I'm going to be doing probably about six or seven videos. But to start off with, the first thing I want to do rather than jumping in into showing you how to create infographics is to show you what makes a cool infographic.

00:51So what makes a good infographic pretty much comes down to an effective infographic. Effective infographics are composed of a few different attributes. They're well-designed, they tell a good story, and also they are easy to understand.

01:06They give you a visual aspect of content in a manner that is easy and snackable. So the first thing I want to talk to you about is that an effective infographic tells you a good story. So as with presentations, you got to tell a story through infographics.

01:23Infographics are pretty much tall formats of a presentation. Basically tall versus multiple slides. This is a very good example. It pretty much actually is, it starts off well.

01:38It's about five minutes about your digestive system. But the problem is that as you scroll down and as you move down, it ends abruptly and it kind of has a poor narrative. What you want to do instead is to have a good story to tell.

01:53So take readers by the hand and actually guide them through the visuals. This one about airport hacks, it actually tells you a story throughout the process. So as you go through, it tells you different aspects of how to get through airport and different tips and guides on hacking through an airport.

02:12Now, number two is you want to take your users on a predefined journey. So where do you start and where do you end? And along the way, you want to fill between the gaps and tell them the story and actually give them a narrative. This one is not really a great example.

02:27The problem with this infographic is that there really is no sense of a beginning and an end. And it kind of looks like a soup of letters and numbers. The problem is that by just looking at it a few seconds, you have a hard time understanding what has been related to you.

02:44Now, however, this example here, this one, what it does, it allows you to communicate your message effectively. It is composed of harmonious colors. It's not a very complex design. It's actually very simple.

02:59But at the end of it, as you go through it, you are enlightened and also entertained. Now, number three is you want to provide a new angle. One of the most common mistakes that I see designers make or non-designers make when they create infographics is this format where they create a list in a way it's a little bit better than a bullet list where you have visuals composed with supplementing the text.

03:26But however, at the end of the day, it's not really a true infographic. A good infographic, it uses unconventional angles to inform your audience. So this one I really love. It basically tells you the ingredients of chicken noodle ramen.

03:41So what it's done is taken the ingredients and broken it down into one simple, easy to understand, snackable visual. So that's a perfect example. Number four is you want to have practical value. So always ask yourself, when you're creating an infographic, does it bring value to your audience?

03:58Does it inform them? Does it give them something different that they're not aware of? Or give it to them in a more easier to understand aspect? So we actually created an e-book on infographics and the visual learning center. We analyzed over 200 plus most shared infographics at VisMe.

04:14And one of the things that we found out is that a lot of the infographics that are mostly shared, they provide a tangible benefit to the readers. So they are a compilation of difficult tasks and they make them easier to understand.

04:31So for example, it might be a visual cheat sheet, it might be how-to guides. This one is a great example. This infographic is about the history of ice cream. So it goes throughout the different years and actually tells you about the evolution and also where we are today with one of the most commonly consumed snacks being the ice cream.

04:52Next is your content. The infographics should be well-structured. So you want to organize when you have a lot of information. And that's the thing. Infographics are meant to take large amounts of information and make them easy to understand. And that's the problem with a lot of the infographics these days is there's a lot of information and people typically take that and they don't really concentrate on the key points and they just put it all together.

05:17So this infographic has a lot of content, a lot of information, and it also kind of has been processed in a way that it's a little bit hard to understand. You kind of don't know where your eye is supposed to follow. However, this one, what they've done is they've broken it down into sections.

05:33So you want to break your infographic into sections in each section, let it concentrate on a specific message. And so that way the user and the viewer can understand the message in just a few seconds. Now, number six, you want to send one key message.

05:49So when creating an infographic, concentrate on one key message. If it's too complicated of a design such as this one, it's very hard to understand. It kind of beats the purpose of an infographic. Now, if this was, for example, geared towards the engineering community with very large pieces of data and complex data, I can understand why it would be created that way.

06:08But we're talking here about the general audience. We're talking about mass producing or mass share of infographics and allow your audience to be able to view it, find something interesting, and also be able to actually store it for later. So one of the tips would be to, when you're creating your words, to ask someone else that wasn't involved in the process to view it.

06:28If they don't understand it, the challenge is going to be that others may not as well. So this example here, it's actually very neatly done. It's a radial design, and what it's doing is talking about the paid leave maternity. So the U.S. clearly is zero, week's maternity leave, and then the U.K. has, surprisingly, 40, Iran has actually 12 weeks.

06:51So it's a pretty cool way of presenting you the information in a very easy, snackable content. Now, let's talk about seven. It should be visually appealing. And that's a very common mistakes amateurs make. There is no visual appeal to this design. There's way too much text, and it kind of looks like maybe it's a, you know, a page out of a book.

07:11And that's a big field, and it's a big no-no when it comes to creating, you know, compelling infographics. What you do want to do instead is to, you know, concentrate on a clear title and take advantage of clear user real estate.

07:26And also, this one has a very harmonious, you know, clean design to it. I would actually want to, you know, bookmark this and probably look at it later on, or share it on my Twitter and Facebook and so on. So that's a great example. Number eight, you got to have accurate and well research information.

07:44So one of the big sins in data visualization and infographics is misleading your readers. You want to do research, and you want to make sure you don't provide inaccurate or incomplete information. So this example here, although it's actually, you know, needly designed, in a closer look, it actually exaggerates the results of a study.

08:02Instead, what you want to do is you want to handle information responsibly. So use, you know, utilize useful tips back by facts. So if you do your research and actually provide tips that have research behind them, proven research, then in that aspect you're going to have a much better tailored infographic for your audience.

08:20And nine, last but not least is make copy short and sweet. This is a perfect example. It's very similar to the last one that I showed you. The problem is that it's a very common amateur mistake. We see this all the time when people create infographics and this mean other tools is that they just copy paste content onto their design. The problem is that you are creating an infographic. Infographics are supposed to take, you know, useful information into bite size pieces

08:48and to allow the user to be able to easily understand that. It kind of beats this one, you know, defeats the purpose of a visual communication. This one is a great example though. So perfectly, what it's doing is it has a catchy headline. The design is pretty clean. There's nice contrast on the text over the background so you can easily understand and see the information. There's visuals supported by very small pieces of content.

09:12So the key messages are supported by visuals. So there you have it. This was nine attributes of what makes a good infographic. And on the next episode I'm going to actually talk about the different types of infographics where I'm going to talk to you about timeline, process, infographics, and a series of others. And that way you can actually, when you create yours in the future steps, in the future series you will be able to understand and know what type of infographic is going to accompany the type of content that you want to present. Thank you.