Infographics:

Its All in Your Head

by Hillary Oberpeul

The best visualization evokes that moment of bliss when seeing something
for the first time, knowing that what you see has been right in front of you,
just slightly hidden.
Nathan Yau, Data Points: Visualization that Means Something
During an average day, you consume 34 gigabytes (or 100,500
words) of informationand thats outside of work. Can you say
information overload? The emails never stop rolling into your
inbox, text messages make your phone buzz constantly, and
those Buzzfeed articles are just too hard to resist. So how do
you separate the important information from the life spam?
Information designers have the difficult task of getting people to sit up and pay attention. Its a good thing they have the
power of data visualization in their wheelhouses.
Data visualization breaks down to mean
making the complex simple. Through
the use of graphs, charts and other
visuals, information designers grab
your attention and skillfully explain complex data and concepts.
Sometimes they even combine
this use of visuals into something
called an infographic.
Youve probably seen an infographic or two in your
time, whether online or in
print. If not, take a peek at
the one to the right of this article. Infographics are usually
made of a collection of facts,
visuals and short explanations.
They present everything from scientific data about the human brain
to the cycles of the moon using Oreos.
Infographics arent always serious; but they are
cooland highly effective.
Its easy to recognize when an infographic draws you in, but
have you ever wondered why?

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Infographics Make Your Brain Happy

The appeal of infographics is all in your headin your brain,
that is. Over half of your brains capacity is dedicated to
processing visual information. Your eyes contain almost 70
percent of the sensory receptors in your body, which means
that in about 1/10 of a second, you can process whats going
on in any given moment. You are literally hardwired to
process information through sight. Infographics play into
that hardwiring by combining visuals and text to engage your
brains capacity for visual perception.
Because there are so many cells in your
eyes and brain that process information, you have the ability to process
a massive amount of stimuli at
oncewhether youre conscious
of it or not. The way your eyes
work, your foveal (or central)
vision focuses on a word or a
picture, while your peripheral
vision scans for the next point
you need to focus on. In a world
where information is thrown at
us at a faster rate than ever before,
your eyes and brain have to do the
hard work of categorizing information
based on importance. Visuals and infographics make that job easier.
Color visuals make you want to read more
and boost your ability to understand complex
information. Theyve been shown to increase a
persons willingness to read by as much as 80 percent. Your
eyes can process a visual and attribute meaning to a color
infographic in just of a second, as opposed to processing 40
words in just under 10 seconds.

The visuals included in an infographic also

help you retain what youve seen. People
remember 80 percent of what they see, as
compared to 20 percent of what they read.
However, this doesnt mean that
visuals alone are the best way to present
complex information. Often, its the
interaction between carefully crafted text
and well-designed visuals that are the
most effectivethe kind of interaction you
find in infographics.
As information has become increasingly
digitaland access to that information
becomes easier and easierthe amount
we truly read is much less than youd think.
On the average Web page, a person reads
only 28 percent of whats presented there.
If you only read 28 percent of what is there,
and will only remember 20 percent of what
youve read, presenting information
becomes a tactical process to get your
point across. Every phrase, visual and
piece of information has to pack a punch.
The combination of text and visual
elements in an infographic provides a way
to draw you in. The colors make you want
to read more. The visuals prevent you from
feeling like you had to struggle through a
long, dense description of a complex concept. As writer and designer David
McCandless put it in his TED talk, If youre
navigating a dense information jungle,
coming across a beautiful graphic or a
lovely data visualization, its a relief. Its
like coming across a clearing in the jungle.

Infographics Can Be Too

Effective
You read that correctly: sometimes
infographics can be too effective. With
great data visualization comes great
responsibilityto be ethical. Visuals are
more fun to look at and theyre more
convincing than words alone.

What
WhatDodoProfessional
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Writers
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Professional writers dont just write.

They design. They create. They promote. They edit, analyze

and construct ideas. They learn and implement technology.

The Top 5 Skills Used by Professional Writers on the Job

based on a survey of graduates from the Professional Writing Masters program at the University of Cincinnati

1. Writing

2. Editing

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Solving

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in a variety of elds.

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They are called a lot of things.

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We like to call them successful.

PW University of Cincinnati
at the

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In a study done by the Wharton School of Business, more

people were persuaded by a presentation that included visuals rather than one that did not. Add that to the fact that
people are 80 percent more likely to remember information
presented visually, and the accurate presentation of visuals
becomes more important. Are you starting to see how this
could go very, very wrong?
In the wrong hands, the powers of data visualization can
prove misleading. If an information designer stretches out
the scale on a graph, you might think that results of a study
are more drastic than they really are. If a line on a pie chart is
at the wrong angle, you might think a percentage is weightier
than it actually is. If similar information is presented in different units, you might be swayed by inconclusive data.
For example, in a Fox ews segment, the following graph was
used as evidence for exponential growth in unemployment
rates.

Notice that the Y axis has no label. Does it represent the number of jobs lost in that quarter? Or does it describe the number of jobs lost over all? We dont know. You should also notice
that the X axis seems to be a collection of random dates. To be
ethical, this X axis should have equidistant points represented
across the board. As is, this X axis represents a group of random points. Look what happens when the X axis is appropriately laid out.

This graph looks a little different than the one above, doesnt
it? This is the power of data visualization when its used
unethically.

The majority of people looking at a visualization arent armed

with the knowledge that small manipulations can change its
meaning, which makes ethical data visualization incredibly
important.
While some visuals and infographics are purposefully deceptive, more often information designers create unethical visuals without meaning to. It happens when theres an oversight
in the data visualization process. Not fully understanding the
context surrounding a set of data can lead an information designer to make incorrect assumptions about which chunks of
data are significant. The story told with that data could then
be wrong or skewed. But because infographics are persuasive,
youas part of the audiencewould be left with an incorrect
impression.
Creating effective and ethical infographics involves more
than just making pretty visuals. Data is more than numbers,
and to visualize it, you must know what it represents. Data
represents real life, says Nathan Yau, statistician and author.
Its a snapshot of the world in the same way that a photograph captures a small moment in time.
In his book, Data Points: Visualization that Means Something, Yau talks about data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau. Every 10 years, the Census Bureau collects information
on people living in the United States. That data represents
where people live, shows how the population has changed in
certain areas and helps create an image of who lives in America. But how much can the simple statistics in the census really
represent the dynamic and diverse people living in America?
It really cant. Data points represent the what of the citizens
of the United States. Context represents the why of these
people. Understanding that in a certain area of the country,
people are highly tied to place (and wont move away for any
reason) may help an information designer better communicate about ways to deal with low air quality.
Understanding the context surrounding the data presented
in basic visualizations or infographics is what makes them so
powerful. It allows the information designer to take complex
information and deliver it to the reader in a format that makes
that information engaging, memorable and comprehensible.
It allows infographics to become more than an illustration;
they become a tool for presenting data in new, interesting
ways.
Infographics bridge the gap between data and design, and
that bridge makes your brain want to celebrate.
Hillary Oberpeul is a 2015 graduate of the M.A. in
Professional Writing program at the University of Cincinnati.
*Photos courtesy of www.simplystatistics.org

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