![]() Good infographics should have balance, visual stability and clearly communicate a point. Never overlook clear communication for the sake of a pretty picture. ![]() Don’t worry, they don’t have to be boring, you can get creative with quantitative data, as long as the graph still accurately and clearly represents your data and aligns with the theme of your infographic.Ĭreative Use of Graphics For qualitative data, or showing information that can’t be numerically measured, icons, illustration, timelines, word clouds and typography are useful. Whatever visual output you choose it should suit your research method and your purpose, and communicate as clearly as possible.įor quantitative data, you’ll most likely want to use bar graphs, pie charts, histograms or any other number of charts or graphs that visually show numerical data. Visual abstracts still provide key information but are more flexible and varied in terms of size and content than research posters or traditional written abstracts. Less well-known, are visual abstracts which condense the information from an abstract into a more engaging visual display. ![]() I’m sure you’re familiar with research posters. However, with academic and research infographics, probably the most widely used outputs are the research poster and visual abstract. In the context of research, ‘infographics’ can apply to any number of visual outputs, including presentations, visual reports, illustrations that accompany an article, or scientific diagrams. Ben Brockbank can be contacted on this post demonstrates, good infographics offer a fast, effective and eye-catching method of conveying complex information in a more accessible and engaging way. ![]() Ben approached us when one of his colleagues suggested our readers may value tips on creating infographics to illustrate and promote their research. The critical researcher therefore needs a suitable strategy for evaluating infographics – a strategy that combines techniques for analysing any research with techniques more commonly used when engaging with visual art.This week’s post comes from a graphic designer who works with academics. As a consequence, the internet is replete with some truly awful infographics masquerading as research reports – awful due to poor design, lack of background information, inadequate explanation and deceptive or inaccurate representation of numerical research data. In addition, even when a researcher is intending to accurately represent their research, a disadvantage of infographics is that, although it is fairly easy to produce them, it is not so easy to produce them well. This is why, when looking at any infographic, it is important to interrogate the data interpretation process, which the infographic actually makes it harder to see. The disadvantage of infographics mirrors their advantage – that they present a quickly comprehensible picture of a subject, distanced not only from the raw data but also (perhaps more importantly) from the process of inference/analysis by which that picture is generated. The competition for attention that exists on the web often means that research reporting – especially by journalists, but also by researchers seeking to enhance their professional reputation – tends towards simple, dramatic stories. While infographics can be an extremely effective research communication tool, the communicative power of infographics can also be deliberately harnessed to deceive for example, by presenting a selective view of a dataset, designed to obscure or over-amplify key research findings.
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