

Your infographic isn't an infographic. It's just a crappy graphic. - portentint
http://www.portent.com/blog/design-dev/10-reasons-your-infographic-isn.htm

======
kevinpet
Title makes it sound like he's going to delineate the difference between
"infographic" and "non-infographic", but it seems to run into the "real
Christians" problem where anything he doesn't like "isn't an infographic".
Apparently it's categorically impossible for an infographic to be less than
fantastic, which is an odd definition of infographic.

~~~
tptacek
Let's not pretend there's more controversy here than there really is. If
anything, the point he's making is too banal. Almost the whole of _The Visual
Display of Quantitative Information_ argues against the style of visualization
this post argues against.

Virtually all infographics are indeed terrible visualizations of information.

~~~
lloeki
> _Virtually all infographics are indeed terrible visualizations of
> information._

I do not agree. I've seen quite a bunch that – although obviously not a
definitive source of information – give a good sense of perspective. Here's
one [0] that came back to mind.

[0] <http://mozy.com/blog/misc/how-much-is-a-petabyte/>

~~~
Locke1689
Really? Most of that chart is just big text. Big text is not an infographic. I
would say the most interesting one I've come across recently is
<http://xkcd.com/radiation/>.

~~~
tptacek
Is that a particularly effective graphic? Look at how the green doses
transition to the orange ones (with a legend "all green doses combined"
corresponding to an irregular number of orange boxes), and then look at the
transition from orange to yellow; are all the orange doses equivalent to 50sv,
or are all the orange doses equivalent to one box?

I agree that the XKCD "radiation" chart is an instance where an XKCD-style
comic does a better job of explaining something than an equivalent well-
written paragraph. But I don't agree that it's a particularly great
visualization.

~~~
Locke1689
I would definitely agree that it isn't the _best_ graphic, but I think it does
an admirable job of portraying the primary thing it was created to portray (I
assume) -- the context of radiation dose levels. I can very quickly eyeball
the order of magnitude difference between a plane flight and a chest X-ray,
while I could also dial down to the more precise differences if necessary.

The "radiation doses combined" transition seemed fairly clear to me. In every
case the collective doses are measured in the new SI-prefixed unit delineated
by the scale on the left. If I were to criticize anything I would be a little
more wary of the color choices and the box labeling. The = sign and
parenthetic dose notation seems a little confused (the blue box dose size uses
a different convention from the others).

While the chart could layout some things a little more clearly, I think that
Minard's chart shows that one shouldn't reduce information content solely for
the sake of simplicity.

~~~
tptacek
I think the chart would do better if removed from the arbitrary constraint of
XKCD's page framing; if, for instance, a suitably large canvas was used, so
that the eyes could immediately grasp the comparatively minimal exposures from
common radiation sources to (say) the gigantic exposures from Chernobyl.

It's clearly within Munroe's capability to make such a graphic; he did this
one on a deadline. I'm not criticizing Munroe (though: not an XKCD fan), just
making an objective assessment of the graphic.

And, like I said: here's a case where a graphic, even an imperfect one,
probably communicates rich information more effectively than prose. Unlike the
"relative sizes of data" infographic upthread.

------
henrikeh
I really wish he (Ian Lurie) spend more time giving examples of great
information (/data) graphics and what strategies to take when designing such
graphics. To me, this comes off as a mere complain.

Lurie links to Mark (Mapstone?) who, also, complains about infographics. I'd
like to take a shot at how they could make better infographics. Especially a
graphic by Mashable Infographics about the 1.8 zettabytes of data produced
every year.

The "1.8 zettabyte"-graphic from Mashable shows a lot of (meaningless)
comparison, but absolutely no causality. Imagine if they instead talked about
all the different sources of information, adding up to the enormous quantity
of 1.8 zettabytes. Like the amount of video uploaded to YouTube everyday, the
number of Tweets and there size in gigabytes per day, the increasing number of
cameras being bought, growth on Wikipedia and probably many more.

------
korzon
For actual depth and substance regarding information visualization, you should
just read Tufte, since much of this article is obviously informed by it:
<http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/books_vdqi>

~~~
astral303
+1 million. That book changed my life, at least as far as information
presentation is concerned. It's that good. If you ever make a chart or a
graph, you owe it to yourself and your viewers to read that book.

~~~
aiscott
Was there a specific book you had in mind? There are 8 at the link.

~~~
ben1040
Of those, _Visual Display of Quantitative Information_ and _Beautiful
Evidence_ are my favorites.

~~~
ctdonath
Accompany those with the classic _How To Lie With Statistics_.

------
melchior
As a designer I'd like to thank you for this post. This recent fad of
"infographics" (some text in rectangles + pie chart) is quite sad. These
things are information graphics about as much as fake lens flares were graphic
design in the 90s.

Side note: are you serious about people paying for this?

~~~
hoopism
Well said.

I contribute to a site that does a lot of interactive visualizations and works
with artists that do more static infographics.

Because we display them time to time we get massive amounts of email from
companies that paid to have an infographic made (usual on a subject not
related to their biz) and slap ads on the bottom. I've never posted one and
can't for the life of me figure out why any legit business (maybe that's my
answer) would do that.

The data part seems to be the biggest thing people fail to understand. If you
don't have compelling data or the graphic doesn't lend itself to understanding
the data... then what's it for?

~~~
EvilTerran
_can't for the life of me figure out why any legit business (maybe that's my
answer) would do that_

I think they're hoping it'll "go viral". And they pronounce that _with_ the
quotes.

~~~
hoopism
I will say... I've had lots of success with some of the visualization projects
I've worked on (TOOT TOOT!)... but none had ads and I had no service to
sell... so that makes things a lot less complicated.

------
kstenerud
If you're going to use a flashy javascript popup mechanism to view image
links, please make sure at the very least that people whose screens aren't as
wide as the image can access the close button!

------
replicatorblog
Maybe instead of bashing infographics designers would benefit from figuring
out why they are so popular? This "Cult of Tufte" stuff is kind of grating.
Minard's map showing Napoleon's march into Moscow is a great example. It is an
elegant chart that shows 6 key bits of information (# of troops, location,
direction, temp, time, attrition), but it's a bore to look at.

It might be the greatest piece of info design ever, but it will draw less
attention than a lame "infographic".

I think "Infographics" have huge potential, just like blog slide shows do.
Both are universally reviled by "serious" thinkers, but are incredibly
popular. I see them revealing a need for more condensed, actionable
information, not a scourge. There is signal in that noise.

~~~
saraid216
Flashy > Informative?

~~~
ghaff
I'm not sure I'd have used the term "a bore," but I think the parent poster's
point is that the Napoleon graphic doesn't immediately draw you in. If you
study it for a while, it manages to accumulate a great deal of information in
a remarkably integrated way but it takes study to appreciate what is being
communicated. While that graphic is rightfully famous, it wouldn't IMO work
especially well in, say, a conference presentation setting or even a
newspaper.

~~~
saraid216
Why does it need to draw you in?

If you don't need the information that it conveys, there's no reason for you
to study it. If you do want the information, then you'll take the time
necessary to understand it.

To me, if your graphical elements are running the show in a conference
presentation setting or in a newspaper, you're already doing something wrong.
Those aren't the right media for infographics (well, newspapers would
sometimes find them useful).

Don't conflate media unnecessarily. If you need something flashy, make
something flashy. If you need something informative, make something
informative. Don't repudiate something meant to be flashy for being
uninformative, nor something meant to be informative for being insufficiently
flashy.

------
benologist
It's not even a crappy graphic. It's just eyecandy for social news sites and
blogs to generate traffic and backlinks.

------
dfxm12
My biggest beef with infographics is that they are almost always a static
image. This is 2012. Why not make something interactive? It could help address
several of the author's points as well.

~~~
bwh2
Static images are easier to share.

~~~
thwarted
Links are difficult to share?

~~~
benihana
Static images being easy to share does not mean links are difficult to share.
It means static images are easier to share.

~~~
thwarted
Are they? Save an image to a file, attach to an email. Cut and paste a link
into an email or an IM. Or provide a link to a page with the image: same exact
work as a link to a non-image. This is, at the very least, the same amount of
work.

------
fromhet
Has the quality of links on HN declined the last months?

~~~
olalonde
Yes. This is obviously link bait, SEO content.

~~~
juddlyon
I'm not sure that's fair, Ian Laurie has been a solid blogger for years and is
often critical of current trends. He ventures into technical topics from time
to time too.

He may not be your cup of tea but he's certainly not the cheap PR stunt kind
of internet marketing guy (I'm not sure you're insinuating that, just wanted
to let folks who are interested in web marketing topics that he's worth paying
attention to IMO).

~~~
Karunamon
>is often critical of current trends

I'm seeing more and more of this kind of article on HN recently. Solid blogger
or not, if I had a penny for every "$current_trend sucks" screed posted here
and frontpaged, I'd be retiring by now.

Honestly, it gets old hearing people complain about everything under the sun
after a while. (And I say this as someone who complains a hell of a lot on his
own blog, but then again I've never been posted here..)

Did we really need a breathless blog article to tell us that some infographics
suck? Stop the presses!

~~~
tokenadult
_I'm seeing more and more of this kind of article on HN recently. Solid
blogger or not, if I had a penny for every "$current_trend sucks" screed
posted here and frontpaged, I'd be retiring by now._

Isn't the quoted statement from your comment a "$current_trend sucks"
statement? I guess you see the need to decry some current trends, just as all
of us do from time to time.

~~~
Karunamon
Heh. Kind of funny that I didn't see that.

I guess what I was getting at is that seeing the same thing over and over
again tends to get old.

------
shabble
The wide proliferation of really terrible ones seems to tie into some murky
SEO tactic of getting a designer to whip you up something 'viral', stick it on
the www.totallylegitadultdiplomaswithfreeviagra.com root, and then have a cute
little 'share this' link that gives you the url along with a blob of html
stuffed with invisible SEOjunk keywords, and rely on people's laziness and
stupidity to get the backlinks flowing.

I recall reading a good article on it a while back, but oddly enough, "SEO
infographics" is now a sufficiently desirable niche that there are junk
infographics just waiting to take your call.

------
jrockway
I disagree. I now mentally associate the word "infographic" with "poorly-
thought-out blog post that the author wrote in Photoshop in order to
familiarize himself with all of its features." As for a graphic that conveys
information, well, those don't exist anymore.

------
billpatrianakos
I agree completely but unfortunately I doubt people will do them right until
they stop attracting eyeballs. To the well informed, bad info graphics are a
plague on the web. To my sister's teenage friends and my mother's circle of
friends they're "oh cool, I don't have to read!". Self respecting graphic
designers won't create these awful "info graphics" but anyone who's looking to
attract some eyeballs in the hopes of getting an ad or two clicked or a new
rss subscriber will keep polluting the web with them until we stop looking.

~~~
pault

        Self respecting graphic designers won't create these awful "info graphics"
    

Disagree! Kelli Anderson is a fantastic designer and makes all kinds of
infographics (although I imagine they cost a lot more than $200):
<http://www.kellianderson.com/projects/infographics.html>

~~~
mark_integerdsv
Andersen is a great example, as is Feltron!

------
jack-r-abbit
Why does the URL say "10 reasons..." but the article title says "11
reasons..."? Honestly, that bothers me enough to not even read the rest.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
People rename articles, but URLs are not supposed to change, and should never
break.

~~~
jack-r-abbit
So the article was published before it was done? Clearly it was 10 when it got
published... then it was increased to 11. I just think that if a person is
going to publish something like this and expect people to listen, they should
show that a certain amount of thought was put into it before releasing it into
the wild. But I guess mine is an unpopular view.

~~~
portentint
It wasn't 10, honest. I just can't count. Which is why I use computers and
stuff. They count gooder than me.

~~~
jack-r-abbit
ya, they do count gooder... but they lack a sense of humor. ;)

