What Do We Mean When We Talk About Infographics?
Authors
Xiaoyu Liu (University of Maryland, College Park), Vishnu Sreekanth (University of Maryland, College Park), Vraj Patel (University of Maryland, College Park), Shalin Muzumdar (University of Maryland, College Park), Diego Lopez (University of Maryland, College Park), Fumeng Yang (University of Maryland College Park), Zhicheng Liu (University of Maryland College Park)
Presentation
- Session
- Form Follows Function
- Time
- Tuesday, Nov 10, 10:09 – 10:18 (US/Eastern) · session 10:00 – 11:30
- Location
- Hall Essex north
Keywords
Infographics, literature review, questionnaire.
Abstract
There has been limited clarity and consistency regarding what the term infographics, or information graphics, refers to in visualization research and practice. In particular, little is understood about where people’s conceptualizations of infographics converge or diverge. To address this gap, we conducted a systematic literature review and a practitioner survey to identify and contrast different perspectives on infographics. We performed inductive coding on 487 sentences from 111 visualization and HCI papers, and analyzed questionnaire responses from 44 domain practitioners. Our findings reveal recurring dimensions of conceptual disagreement on infographics: role of text, relationship with data visualization, and relationships with statistical charts and data comics. Based on the results, we recommend future work to explicitly report any assumptions made along these diverging conceptualizations, to investigate the cognitive origins of these disagreements, and to develop more holistic design component frameworks for infographics. The supplementary materials are available via OSF and as an interactive web application.
For Practitioners
We anticipate that our findings will be helpful for practitioners who design, consume, and/or use infographics. Results of our inductive coding from literature review and practitioner questionnaire highlight converging and conflicting views on the visual design, narrative goal, and real-world application of infographics. These codes can help practitioners identify best practices and areas of consideration, which will translate into more effective representation and communication of data and knowledge via infographics.