In response to a growing number of tweets, photos and blog posts claiming to be showing the next cool infographic, I was compelled to write this blog post because the majority of you…

“…just ain’t creating anything like an infographic”

For the context of this blog post, lets just focus on visual means to share information of some kind i.e. lets ignore for the moment post-modernism artists and the like!

The definition of an infographic, taken from Wikipedia is as follows:

“Information graphics or infographics are graphic visual representations of information, data or knowledge. These graphics present complex information quickly and clearly”

The key line (for me anyway) is that they “…present complex information quickly and clearly…”. Basically “stuff” that if written down or represented in any other way would be cumbersome, difficult to digest and likely use up a whole tree of paper.

My definition is that an infographic is a visual representation, usually utilising a metaphor of some kind, of the analysis of significant amounts of data regarding a particular subject.

Choices

When we are representing information, knowledge or data in a visual way we have a number of choices:

• Infographic (or Data Visualisation)
• Diagram
• Picture
• Sketch.

There are probably other categories and sub-categories, but I think that kinda sums it up. I’ll take you briefly through each and give some examples, so you can in future, correctly pitch your visuals without causing confusion or misinterpretation…

Note: This is my opinion, you may not agree, but there we are….

Infographics (or Data Visualisations) Are…

They can be defined in many ways, but the key is that they give you an overview or analysis of significant (often complex or plentiful) data or possibly a concept. They do not show specific details, they do give meaning to the subject

Here’s a great example from the site “Information is Beautiful” I thought you’d like:

Caffeine and Calories

Click through for the large size on the original site.

Multitasking Effects On the Brain

Click through for the large size on the original site.

Diagrams

These typically show flow, structure or a breakdown (of parts perhaps) of information and often show real levels of detail.

Here’s a typical example in the SharePoint world from Microsoft:

Microsoft SharePoint Governance Diagram

We’ll be doing our own version of the poster above soon that actually covers proper governance i.e. the “5 Pillars of SharePoint Governance”.

Other examples could be a diagram of the brain, site collections, SharePoint features (yeh the SharePoint wheel is a diagram”.

Pictures Are…

Well you know what a picture is don’t you?

It could be a photograph or a drawing used to accurately represent (in the context of this blog post i.e. sharing information)

Here’s a couple of different examples:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/visionet-art/2543981061/

Sketches Are…

(Usually) quick “drawings” created either physically (wall, paper, sketchbook, moleskine, napkin, whiteboard e.t.c.) or electronically (Sketchbook Pro, MS Paint, graphic tablets e.t.c.) that are meant to convey meaning, help recall, explain a concept, record an event of some kind or even just evoke an emotional response.

Here’s a few very different examples:

Gaping Void Pencil

21apps 5 Pillars of Governance Sketch

Sketching Practise with Story Cubes

Recap

After my tweet that started the idea for this post,  Chris Poteet came back with a great comment:

I would almost go as far as to say if you don’t have a heap of data behind the “infographic” in Excel, some kind of database or a “Big Data” application, then what your doing is probably a diagram or a pretty picture…

“I am not saying that your non-infographic isn’t valuable, I’m sure that it is, but just call it by the right name please…”

I hope this little blog post helps and don’t forget 21apps are always around to help you create your next visual masterpiece, whatever category it may fall into, just get in touch!