Rudaí23 thing#21: Infographics

Infographics are just another way of getting people to look at information. Similar to presentations, however, the way in which you do so is incredibly important. Doing infographics well is the difference between a pie chart and something that people actually want to read, absorb the information, and really connect with. A lot of what we learned about with regards to presentations is applicable here: are you overloading your infographic with too much information? Is its message difficult to understand? Then you might need to get to grips with the new way of presenting infographics that's becoming increasingly common in nearly every part of your working life.

We've all seen the new lease of life that graphs and diagrams illustrating information has been given in the last few years, and this is primarily due to the way that apps like easel.ly and piktochart present this information: clear, easy to decipher infographics. But, of course, these apps are just the tools: it's up to you to get to know how to use them in the correct way. Imagine presenting something like user statistics in a graph form.

An example of a rudimentary graph from publiclibrariesonline.org

Now imagine presenting user statistics like this:

User statistics from University of Hawaii at Manoa Library

You can be looking at the same information, but seeing different things. The graph will show you all the information that you might need to know, but there is nothing appealing about its presentation. The second example contains clear, strong colours, nice use of font, and easy to understand information.

Getting to grips with ease.ly

I decided to investigate Easel.ly, primarily due to Michelle Breen’s Rudaí23 post, which seemed to suggest that the free trial gives you slightly more freedom with regards to PDFs, but really it was just to experiment with either, as I have never done anything like this before, and have never even heard of these apps.

An example of my easel.ly homepage.

I found it really easy to create an account with Easel.ly (this is not always the case!) You're given the option to choose a template, but you can also start from scratch. Ease.ly also give you the option of searching for a template or browsing by category. The screen that gives you all this information is very basic and that's a good thing: you're not overwhelmed by options and that's very inviting. Interestingly, this is what you should be going for in your infographics.

I did an example of an infographic very quickly, but I think I got a rough idea of how the site works. On the free trial, you’re given a (limited) use of templates. I chose one that was based on a basic review of how a web site works. I deleted the image of a web site that they used, and uploaded one of our own. This was very, very easy to do  and it was easy to manipulate the image in terms of height or width. It took a little while to get used to using the tools at the top of the page, rather than ‘right clicking’, but as soon as I got into the swing of things, I was happy with how easy it was.

A (very basic) example of an easel.ly infographic

Another nice little touch is that once you start using it, easel.ly will send you a follow-up email with a 'cheat sheet' giving you links to an infographics crash course, some video tutorials, how to display charts, bringing in hyperlinks to your infographics, information about using fonts, and all the nitty-gritty stuff like downloading, searching, and sharing all the things you've created. Here's an example of one of their tutorials covering some of the basics about easel.ly. It should give you a good overview of what to expect if you decide to sign up for an account.

 

Using infographics in a library setting

I think using Easel.ly for inductions for new students would be a brilliant way of grabbing their attention as well as making presentations to colleagues stand out a bit better. I would like to really get to investigate it more, particularly using your own designs as well as seeing what the upgrade version offers you above the free model.