2. 2
Table of Contents
Type of Infographic You Will Create and Requirements .........................................................................................3-4
Decide the Target Audience and Purpose................................................................................................................5
Decide the Topic and Write a Working Thesis ...........................................................................................................6-8
Find Statistical Data .......................................................................................................................................................9
Identify the Data Story...................................................................................................................................................10
Focus Your Data Story ...................................................................................................................................................11
Create the Textual Outline ..........................................................................................................................................12-18
Create the Wireframe ...................................................................................................................................................19-21
Create the Right Type of Chart(s) ...................................................................................................................22
Decide the Isotype You Will Create.................................................................................................................23-27
Decide What Number(s) You Will Visualize .....................................................................................................28
Decide How You Will Create the Infographic (what tool(s) you will use) .............................................................29
About Templates and How to Avoid Plagiarism .......................................................................................................30-31
Submitting Your Infographic.........................................................................................................................................32
3. Definition of the
Type of Infographic You Will Create
3
You will need to create a Mixed Chart type of infographic.
• This type of infographic tells a data story by visualizing statistical
data in a mix of charts, visualized numbers, and isotypes
(pictographs or pictograms).
• You will need at least three different charts (bar, pie, column,
line, or scatter plot), plus one isotype and one visualized
number.
Note this requirement: Do not use visuals of graphs, charts, or
isotype (pictographs/pictogram) from sources in your infographic.
All graphs, charts, and isotypes must be created by you. You may,
of course, use the features in free infographic creators to create
these visuals.
5. Decide the
Target Audience and Purpose
Your audience should be non-specialized (i.e. a lay
audience), but you will need to narrow the focus to target
a specific lay audience.
For example, if you chose parents of a child recently
diagnosed with autism as your audience, your infographic
purpose could be to educate by presenting statistical facts
about autism.
Identify your infographic's purpose with a verb.
• to Persuade?
• to Educate?
• to Inform?
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6. Decide the Topic and
Write Working Thesis
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• Consider telling a data story on a topic that is in
your field of study. But, you may choose any topic
as long as it is not a trivial subject.
• Just as in writing a paper, your topic needs to be
developed into a working thesis (one you may
decide to change later). For now, answer this
question:
• What is the thesis (main point) you plan to
support with the data you will visualize?
7. 7
A clear thesis will help you
govern how you focus the
layout of your data.
Notice how multiple sets of
data are visualized around a
single thesis in this infographic:
The Current State of Backup
for Mac Users.
8. Avoid a thesis that is politicizing or
sensationalizing a data story.
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9. Find Statistical Data
9
• Explore the open-source databases and links to other
statistical sites on the project page.
10. Identify the Data Story
Once you have decided your topic, audience, purpose,
thesis, and found statistical data, you will need to analyze it
to identify what aspects of the data will best support the
story you want to tell.
To do that, it’s best to gather the data into one place such
as cutting and pasting into a word file or downloading into
an Excel spread sheet.
• Look for changes over time.
• Differences or similarities between items.
• Identify parts of a whole.
• Identify the relationship between two or more variables.
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11. Focus Your Data Story
Just as when writing a paper, you must decide how much
content you will need to support your thesis.
Focus on identifying key points from the data that you want
to present visually in your story to support your thesis.
Work recursively. This means, that although you have
already made some decisions, allow yourself room to make
adjustments as you process the data and focus the story.
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12. Create the
Textual Outline
12
You will need to write some copy (i.e. text) for your
infographic.
Writing a textual outline before you begin designing
the infographic will help you consider what data that
you have gathered will be best for the required mix
of different charts; the isotype; and visualized
visualized number.
A textual outline conveys the main ideas and
supporting points but does so with a minimal amount
of text.
13. What to include in your textual outline
Write a Title that conveys your infographic's topic.
Example:
Title: The Rising Cost of Health Care
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14. Write an Introduction
The introduction should state your thesis in 1 or 2
lines. Work on composing engaging copy.
Example:
Title: The Rising Cost of Health Care (topic)
Introduction: Your Health Care May be Eating Up More
of Your Wallet Than You Think (thesis)
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15. What to include in the body of the outline.
Body. Write the supporting points that will serve as
titles for the data you will visualize. Again, keep text
to a minimum.
Example:
Title: The Rising Cost of Health Care (topic)
Introduction: Your Health Care Bills Are Eating Up More of
Your Wallet Than You Think (thesis)
• Supporting Point 1: 41% of Adults in America Had Trouble
Finding the Care They Needed Because of Costs
Repeat for all supporting points.
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16. What to include for a conclusion.
The layout of your infographic may lead to an
implied conclusion or you may need to state it
explicitly.
If you state your conclusion, write it as a single line
of text at the end of the infographic.
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17. What to include about sources.
Cite the source(s) of your statistical data. The URL address and
title of site is sufficient. Example:
• healthcare.gov; Commonwealth Fund for Studying Health
System Changes
If you used icons from a free website, cite the source based
on how the site asks you to credit the author for free icons.
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Example: when you
download an icon from
Flaticon, you are prompted
to copy the citation.
18. 18
Example of a Complete Textual Outline
Title: The Rising Cost of Health Care (Topic)
Introduction: (Thesis)
Your Health Care Bills Are Eating Up More of Your Wallet Than You Think
Supporting Point 1: 41% of Adults in America Had Trouble Finding the Care They
Needed Because of Costs
Supporting Point 2: 60% of Personal Bankruptcies are Linked to Medical Bills
Supporting Point 3: Healthcare Increased Nearly 1.5 faster than wages between 1989
and 2011.
Supporting Point 4: Out-of-Pocket Costs are Increasing for All Americans. Adults with
incomes
• $22K or below spent 21% in 2001, 26% in 2005, and 50% in 2010
• $22K to $44K spent 38% in 2001, 26% in 2005, and 41%in 2010
• above $44K spent 16% in 2001, 21% in 2005, and 23%in 2010
Supporting Point 5: In 2011, the average family in the US will spend more than $15K
for healthcare coverage.
• This is the price of a Ford Fiesta.
Conclusion. Do you know how much you spent on healthcare last year?
Sources for Statistical Data: healthcare.gov; Commonwealth Fund for Studying Health
System Changes
Adapted from Good - https://www.good.is/infographics/infographic-see-how-much-your-health-care-costs-
are-rising
19. Create a Wireframe
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A wire frame is another name for a sketch of your
infographic. At a minimum, your wireframe needs to include
the following:
1. Three Different Charts visualizing different data appropriate to
the type of chart (column, bar, pie, line graph, etc.)
2. One Visualized Number
3. One Isotype, remember to
include a legend depicting
the number each icon represents
or an x out of y number statement.
You may use more than one of each type in your infographic.
20. The Easiest Way for a Beginner to Create
a Wireframe is to Draw it By Hand.
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As you draw, note where you are
applying the design principles
explained in slidedoc 1. It may be
useful to have that slidedoc open as
you sketch.
Take a photo of your wireframe with
your smart phone or scan it to submit
with your finished deliverables.
The file size of a phone photo or a
scan will be huge, so compress the
file using smallpdf.com. It's free, easy
to use, and you don't even need to
create an account.
21. Include the Following in your Wireframe
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• Placement of titles, subtitles, and introduction,
• Placement of visualized numbers,
• Rough sketches of the charts you will create,
• Rough sketches of the icons in the isotype (pictograph,
pictogram) you will create.
Note this requirement: no source visuals may be used to
create the infographic except for icons.
23. Decide the Isotype
• Isotype (International System Of Typographic Picture
Education) is a symbolic way of representing quantitative
information via easily interpretable icons.
• More modern terminology refers to these types of
representations as pictograms or pictographs.
• Your infographic will need to include one isotype graphic.
See options for how to create isotypes under Tools and Resources.
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24. Example of an Isotype (Pictogram):
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Isotypes require a
legend to show
viewers what each
figure represents.
If using less than 10
figures, an X out of Y
statement can be
used.
26. 26
An example of a
pictograph that doesn’t
work.
Except for putting icons
of cameras in the
columns, the data isn’t
being visualized in a way
that would be easier to
understand than a
standard column chart.
Notice also how the lack
of labels on the x and y
axis makes the chart
impossible to follow.
27. Be Accurate
In this infographic, 4 stick people
represent 43,406 nurses in
2010/11 and 32 stick people are
used to represent 46,573 nurses in
2011/12.
The difference in the actual
numbers is a 7% increase.
But the difference between the
stick people is a 700% increase.
The isotype is visually So, the
infographic is misrepresenting
the data.
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28. Decide What Number(s) You Will Visualize
28
Visualize at least one of the
numbers, but you may want
to emphasize more than one.
NOTE: this example is
provided just to show you
how numbers can be
visualized, but it is not
meeting the three chart
requirement.
29. Decide How You Will Create the
Infographic.
• Use a Free Infographic Creator Tool. See a list of these under
tools and resources on the project page. Canva and Visme
are popular tools.
• Use Word or a single slide in PowerPoint. You will need to
adjust the page size.
• Use Microsoft Publisher. PC users will have access to this
software, but it is not available for Mac users.
• If you are familiar with using more sophisticated graphic
design tools such as Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator, Gimp,
etc., feel free to use whatever works best for you.
See Tools and Resources for more information about these options.
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30. About Using Templates
You may use a template as a
model or a basic starting point for
your infographic.
Change icons, colors, fonts etc. to
reflect YOUR ability to use graphic
design principles.
And in your screencast design
justification, you must clarify which
parts of the template you changed
as well as discuss how the template
reflects principles of effective
graphic design.
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31. 31
An infographic template that can be
customized by just plugging in the data
is not acceptable, and will be
considered a form of plagiarism if used
for this project.
32. Submitting Your Infographic
You may submit your infographic to bblearn
an image file (jpeg, png etc.),
a document file (Word, PPT, PPX, PDF).
or
the URL to where your file is hosted if you created it in a free
infographic creator.
• NOTE: if you create your infographic using Publisher,
please save and submit it as a PDF because I use a Mac
and cannot view Publisher files.
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