A picture paints a thousand words

IDEA N^o 68

INFOGRAPHICS

Infographics present complex data in an easily digestible way. Exploiting the brain’s innate ability to process visual information, they help us to comprehend complex data quickly and accurately.

The Web has given us access to more information than ever before. This volume of data demands new ways of navigating it. David McCandless, author of Information is Beautiful, says that ‘by visualizing information, we turn it into a landscape that you can explore with your eyes, a sort of information map. When you’re lost in information, an information map is kind of useful.’

Providing information visually is not new. Human beings have been using marks, painting images and drawing maps for thousands of years. However, true information graphics are less than 100 years old. It was in 1925, at the Social and Economic Museum of Vienna, that Otto Neurath invented information graphics as we recognize them today.

Neurath’s vision was to bring ‘dead statistics’ to life by making them visually attractive. His maxim was: ‘To remember simplified pictures is better than to forget accurate figures.’ Originally called the Vienna Method, and later ISOTYPE (International System Of TYpographic Picture Education), the graphic language he pioneered is now ubiquitous, appearing everywhere, from airports to websites.

While Neurath gave us the pictogram, the statistician Edward Tufte is the pioneer of data visualization. His Data Density principle suggests that the more data is depicted, the better. In order to simplify a chart, reduce its scale rather than reduce the data. Counterintuitively, shrinking most graphs improves legibility.TheData-InkRatiorecommends that the ink used to represent data should be greater than the ink used to show non-data. ‘Chartjunk’, the unnecessary use of graphical effects, should be omitted entirely. The Lie Factor assesses the graphical integrity of the chart; the size of effect shown in the graphic should reflect the size of effect shown in the data.

The rise of the social web and our reluctance to read long documents has propelled the work of information designers like Neurath, Tufte and McCandless to the fore. It is boom time for infographics. Alongside other bitesized, shareable content such as photos of kittens and GIF animations, infographics have become a staple part of our media diet.

Occurring at the intersection of art and science, infographics appeal to both creative and analytical thinkers. Done badly, you get Chartjunk. Done well, they make data meaningful and entertaining. Sometimes even beautiful.■

An infographic from Information is Beautiful by David McCandless.