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Your infographic isn't an infographic. It's just a crappy graphic.
- dfxm12 14y agoMy 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.
- oacgnol 14y agoMy prediction is that interactive graphics will be the trend in coming years - the things you can do with d3.js, Protovis, and related JS libraries is way deeper than a simple static image. The New York Times already has some great interactive pieces, e.g. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/05/13/business/student-debt-at-colleges-and-universities.html?ref=multimedia http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/05/13/business/stude...
- jaems33 14y agoI don't disagree but there's certainly more complexity with interactive. Takes longer to execute (sketch, design, develop, test). And then many designers don't know how to do interactive front-end code.
- TazeTSchnitzel 14y agoWith HTML5, you could probably make an accessible infographic (that works correctly for screen-reader and text-browser users)
- bwh2 14y agoStatic images are easier to share.
- thwarted 14y agoLinks are difficult to share?
- wingerlang 14y agoImages always works
- benihana 14y agoStatic images being easy to share does not mean links are difficult to share. It means static images are easier to share.
- thwarted 14y agoAre 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.
- laconian 14y agoI don't think they care so much about communicating facts as much as they care about ROI from their SEO investment. If static images work at getting page views from gullible people, then why change?
- jack-r-abbit 14y agoWhy 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 14y agoPeople rename articles, but URLs are not supposed to change, and should never break.
- dllthomas 14y agoAlso, the 11th reason is "you're probably making the other 10 mistakes."
- jack-r-abbit 14y agoSo 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 14y agoIt 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 14y agoya, they do count gooder... but they lack a sense of humor. ;)
- batista 14y agoShouldn't you be bothered more about your emphasis on trivialities over the substance (or OCD)?
- melchior 14y agoAs 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 14y agoWell 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 14y agocan'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 14y agoI 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.
- billpatrianakos 14y agoI 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 14y agoSelf 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 http://www.kellianderson.com/projects/infographics.html
- far-I 14y agothey're nice but hard to read. It seems like the data is not a priority.
- mark_integerdsv 14y agoAndersen is a great example, as is Feltron!
- theycallmemorty 14y ago> I agree completely but unfortunately I doubt people will do them right until they stop attracting eyeballs. The problem is you can't know if they're worth your time until you actually spend the time to look at them.
- korzon 14y agoFor 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 http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/books_vdqi
- astral303 14y ago+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 14y agoWas there a specific book you had in mind? There are 8 at the link.
- ben1040 14y agoOf those, Visual Display of Quantitative Information and Beautiful Evidence are my favorites.
- ctdonath 14y agoAccompany those with the classic How To Lie With Statistics.
- astral303 14y ago"The Visual Display of Quantitative Information" is the one I had in mind. Sorry, I should've checked the link.
- portentint 14y agoAlso check out "Now You See It: Simple Visualization Techniques for Quantitative Analysis". Another great one.
- tokenadult 14y ago
- henrikeh 14y agoI 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.
- benologist 14y agoIt's not even a crappy graphic. It's just eyecandy for social news sites and blogs to generate traffic and backlinks.
- fromhet 14y agoHas the quality of links on HN declined the last months?
- olalonde 14y agoYes. This is obviously link bait, SEO content.
- juddlyon 14y agoI'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 14y ago>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 14y agoI'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.
- kevinpet 14y agoTitle 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 14y agoLet'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 14y ago> 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/ http://mozy.com/blog/misc/how-much-is-a-petabyte/
- tptacek 14y agoOne of the most recurrent metrics in Tufte's books is "density". Another is "comparisons on multiple axes" (I'm going from memory, I think he had a more technical term). How do you think this particular graphic does? Graphics like this seem more like posters promoting an idea than tools for understanding complex data.
- lloeki 14y agoComplex data relative to what? You and I can (quite) easily grasp how huge is a petabyte, an exabyte, a zettabyte even; yet someone not "in the field" will have a hard time grasping what represents such an amount of information. Of course this one being ordered by Mozy should trigger some warnings about it being a covert ad, but it does not detract from the potential veracity of the data. This one is admittedly quite simple, but should we discard all infographics on the merit they're not of Tufte level?
- replicatorblog 14y agoMaybe 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 14y agoFlashy > Informative?
- ghaff 14y agoI'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 14y agoWhy 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.
- kstenerud 14y agoIf 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!
- shabble 14y agoThe 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 14y agoI 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.
- mellon 14y agoWould've liked to see his argument in infographic format.