Mia, I knew Visal.ly was about to release a DIY infographic tool. Thanks for alerting me to the fact that it has been released. It looks great – will have to check it out.

Have you checked out Visual.ly? I believe they just released a beta DIY infographic tool…

Mia, thanks for your reply. I sure wish nonprofits were taking more advantage of this data visualization technique. However, most are stymied not by the desire but by technology barrier (don’t know how, don’t have anyone on staff who can do this), and may not have the budget to put it together. I’m anxiously awaiting the day when more DIY tools become available to create infographics and other data viz collateral.

Debra

Thanks for answering and yes, you are right, it is about a footnote that would really help…. including a URL where I can see the original data on which an infographic is based upon.

Have a great weekend.

Hi Howard,
Thank you for sharing your pininterest curated topic on fundraising-related infographics. I’ll be following it from now on!

Urs,
I think you bring up an excellent point, which is “when is an infographic needed vs. showing charts and numerical data?” I’m not an infographics designer, but I think that the first point from Dave’s “manifesto,” above, is most relevant here: It’s a visual explanation that helps you more easily understand, find or do something.

I also think of infographics as storytelling. Sometimes numbers tell a story, but the story is not easily understood. Other visual images accentuate important data points or reveal hiddent data. Pie charts are great for that as well, and I’ve seen some fabulous infographics that are not more than pie charts and bar charts, but the added non-chart graphics put them in perspective. for example, in figure 1, I think the visual that accompanies 163% tells the story at a glance and also emotionally connects with how important a change it is. I think the graphic image of the top left figure says it better than 1,000 words, but I do not think the top right image does, to reference your points.

I couldn’t agree more that the lack of footnotes and sourcing of infographics does a real disservice to the data. I also want to see notantions become the standard for infographics.

p.s. I’m also excited to put together a guest post for ComMetrics in late October!

Great blog post. I am so pleased to be referenced here. Merci bien.

However, I wanted to ask some questions. For instance:

1 – Could we use just numbers to show the increase we show in Figure 1 above. Put differently, is an infographic really needed to communicate this?

2. What about just using bar charts to show how things developed over the last five years with a line for the mean within the graphic?

3. How about providing at the bottom of the figure a small Note explaining where these data come from. Who collected these numbers and how. For instance, if they come from a reputable organization like the OECD we can probably provide a link to where these numbers come from.

The graphics are clear and allow me to get the message in one glance. Nevertheless, I am one of those people who believes that unless a graphic says more than a thousand words…. why should I use it?

Having said the above, I repeat, this is a great post with lots of links to wonderful resources.

PS. I look forward reading your guest post on our blog in late October.

I’m curating some fundraising-related nonprofit infographics at

http://pinterest.com/howardlake/fundraising-infographics/

I include infographics as one element of curation in my training courses in the UK on digital curation by charities:

http://www.eventbrite.com/event/2291554100/eorg