Help with infographics.
December 13, 2010 2:48 PM Subscribe
I'm working on making some infographics profiling our class at a university - average GPA, test score ranges, gender proportions, diversity, age, work experience, etc. I'm looking for creative ways to present this data rather than a series of bullet points, individual pie/bar graphs, etc. I have "the Visual Miscellaneum" from informationisbeautiful.net but I am looking for specific ideas to visualize academic profile data. Thoughts?
Best of luck to you on this endeavor.
I think your first step would be to look through this list of visualizations and see if any of them could apply to any of your pieces of data.
I have multiple copies (at least 2) of every Tufte book, and I'd gladly lend you a copy off of my shelf... but unfortunately technology has not advanced enough for this to be possible. I suggest Beautiful Evidence and Envisioning Information, but you would do well with any of them.
Surf through sites like FlowingData, CoolInfographics, and Visual Loop to get a sense of what people are doing. Take note of styles you like, things that confuse you, and things that make you intrigued.
I think to make a good infographic you need to think more about how people are going to be using the data. This will in turn tell you the best way to visualize it.
Think of the questions people are going to have when they read your graphic "Did women have a higher GPA? Did more work experience lead to higher test scores? Does age have any effect on GPA?" or whatever might apply to you. Consider the most important pieces of data. Figure out complementary ways of displaying that information. So that you can easily see while looking the connections between different data. This is what is interesting to people. Draw your own connections out of the data, and emphasize those. If you find a certain statistic to be interesting (women are more likely to have had more work experience and a higher GPA but lower test scores, or whatever) and then figure out the best way to show that.
Making infographics is pretty much what puts the bread on my table, so it's hard for me to explain it... All of these steps I sort of already go through and it's hard to break them down and explain them. In any case, if you have any questions feel free to memail me and I'll do my best.
posted by ejfox at 4:33 PM on December 13, 2010
I think your first step would be to look through this list of visualizations and see if any of them could apply to any of your pieces of data.
I have multiple copies (at least 2) of every Tufte book, and I'd gladly lend you a copy off of my shelf... but unfortunately technology has not advanced enough for this to be possible. I suggest Beautiful Evidence and Envisioning Information, but you would do well with any of them.
Surf through sites like FlowingData, CoolInfographics, and Visual Loop to get a sense of what people are doing. Take note of styles you like, things that confuse you, and things that make you intrigued.
I think to make a good infographic you need to think more about how people are going to be using the data. This will in turn tell you the best way to visualize it.
Think of the questions people are going to have when they read your graphic "Did women have a higher GPA? Did more work experience lead to higher test scores? Does age have any effect on GPA?" or whatever might apply to you. Consider the most important pieces of data. Figure out complementary ways of displaying that information. So that you can easily see while looking the connections between different data. This is what is interesting to people. Draw your own connections out of the data, and emphasize those. If you find a certain statistic to be interesting (women are more likely to have had more work experience and a higher GPA but lower test scores, or whatever) and then figure out the best way to show that.
Making infographics is pretty much what puts the bread on my table, so it's hard for me to explain it... All of these steps I sort of already go through and it's hard to break them down and explain them. In any case, if you have any questions feel free to memail me and I'll do my best.
posted by ejfox at 4:33 PM on December 13, 2010
Response by poster: Luckily I have 4 tufte books...good examples for me to see in them?
posted by pithy comment at 7:08 PM on December 13, 2010
posted by pithy comment at 7:08 PM on December 13, 2010
The most well-known Tufte example is the graphic showing Napoleon's 1812 Campaign in Russia. It's in Beautiful Evidence. You'll find it on page 126. Tufte talks about the pairing of different pieces of information, as I talked about in my post. Read Principle 1: Comparisons. This advice will tie over to your data. You have lots of different elements you can show. Whether you show all of them at once, or in different pieces, you're going to need to figure out what comparisons you are going to draw. If you want, skip Principle 2, and read Principle 3 & 4 starting on page 129 which talks about similar stuff. This is crucial, basic stuff with information design. Go to the end of Beautiful Evidence and look at ET's sculptures. These are why he doesn't care about info design anymore. Ponder this for a moment. Move on.
In Envisioning Information. On page 53 he talks about "Layering and Seperation". This is all applicable to what you are doing. You have a ton of data which you're going to need to figure out how to display all together (I assume). This whole chapter is going to be helpful to you. Super-basic, super-essential stuff. It's possible the small multiples section will apply to you as well. You might find yourself making small multiples of different data for different genders, work experience, or other data. This would be a good way to show a large amount of the data you have without being overwhelming. It's also a lot less time consuming than working on layering different datasets together (that's what I spend a lot of my time on infographics doing).
If you have the time, flip through Envisioning Information and read anything that seems applicable to you. Notably his talks on Color starting on page 84 will be helpful, as color is often a crucial way to make a lot of potentially overwhelming data understandable.
posted by ejfox at 7:44 PM on December 13, 2010
In Envisioning Information. On page 53 he talks about "Layering and Seperation". This is all applicable to what you are doing. You have a ton of data which you're going to need to figure out how to display all together (I assume). This whole chapter is going to be helpful to you. Super-basic, super-essential stuff. It's possible the small multiples section will apply to you as well. You might find yourself making small multiples of different data for different genders, work experience, or other data. This would be a good way to show a large amount of the data you have without being overwhelming. It's also a lot less time consuming than working on layering different datasets together (that's what I spend a lot of my time on infographics doing).
If you have the time, flip through Envisioning Information and read anything that seems applicable to you. Notably his talks on Color starting on page 84 will be helpful, as color is often a crucial way to make a lot of potentially overwhelming data understandable.
posted by ejfox at 7:44 PM on December 13, 2010
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posted by brainmouse at 2:56 PM on December 13, 2010