Creating Impactful Infographics with Charts

Hi everybody, Paymon. This is part 5 of the 6 part series on a beginner's guide to creating shareable infographics. So as you know in the last few episodes I talked about the brainstorming process before you create your infographic, the types of infographics and also how to actually design it. So today we're going to be talking about one of the important factors, important key elements in infographics and that is how to create persuasive charts and graphs. Now when it comes to charts I mean it kind of deserves its own series, its own book and there's a lot of information to go over but what I'm going to do is I'm going to promise you I'm going to break it down into easy short snackable video today that in about 10-15 minutes you'll get a good grasp and understanding. of how to include and integrate charts into your infographics and perhaps your presentations, reports and so on. So I'm going to show you how to tell stories through data today. Here's the thing, this is you and that actually used to be me as well because most communicators are pretty much scared of numbers. Now that is you know there's a huge amount of volume, there's a lot of volume of data that we have to deal with. You sometimes have to have Large Excel sheets with a lot of tabs and how do you actually correlate that and make it understandable and actually tell stories through it. And often people are you know they run away from it but there really is a way around it. And in today's era you really can't run away from it because you need to embrace data and use it to tell stories. In fact you think about journalists today. You know there isn't a day goes by that I look at CNN, Fox and other articles that are present on those sites. And as I scroll down, there's always different volumes of data that are actually visualized into charts and graphs. So it is a part of visual communication. You really got to embrace it and not run away from it. So let's talk about the different steps. There's four steps I'm going to talk about today. Number one, before you start the actual, and before you select the type of chart, before you actually start inputting your data into a chart, you got to understand what you want to do. So, step one, you got to resist the urge to immediately choose a chart, very similar to how when you want to create a presentation or an infographic, you first have to brainstorm and get things together and then dive into the actual creation process. All right? So, let's talk about the next thing. Now, in terms of, this is a kind of a cross section, it's four quadrants and it's about the four types of charts that you can create. There are many different types of charts but they actually fall into any of these four. And the question you want to ask yourself first is that is the information data driven or is it conceptual? And also is it declarative or is it explanatory? Because with that you create this cross line and there's a quadrant and depending on what on that quadrant you fall into and I'll show you in a little bit, you're going to decide the type of chart that you're going to use. So for example, if you're explaining a concept. you're going to be in the lower left quadrant and vice and so on. So that's how you do that. Now this cheat sheet is very valuable and it is going to be included at the bottom of this video on this page and also in the e-book there's a link down below that you can download it and then put it to good use because every time you want to create a chart I highly recommend you tap into that first. Okay now step two you gotta consult for context before you start. What does that mean? Well you see it's a it's an often overlooked step in the creation of chart and graphs and what you need to do first is take the little time perhaps just a few minutes and then think about the actual context of the visualization you're going to create. So when we talk about context we're talking about the circumstances that form the setting of your data. Now, this brings me to a few questions you always have to ask yourself. It's actually very similar to a presentation series that I did where before you put together your presentation, you go through this process of asking yourself a few questions. First, you got to know who your audience is. So who is your audience? Because based on the type of audience you're going to be presenting to, it helps you to approach in a manner that resonates with them. Now, second is what do you want to do? What do you want your audience to know? depending on what you want them to know and what you want to inform them allows you to you know start a certain type of discussion or a topic so that second and number three is you have to establish the actual setting that will be used in you know is this for an event or a conference is this chart going to be a front-facing let's say for sales and marketing purposes or is it for internal within your organization or perhaps is it going to be shared on social media or on your website depending on either one of these The way that you put the chart together or the volume of data you're going to present, it actually reflects on the setting that it will be used in. So you want to take that into consideration as well. And so the responses to those questions will actually lead us to this last question, and that is how can you use your data to make this point? Now, step three, you have volumes of data, and again, you may have an Excel sheet with hundreds of columns, rows of data, many tabs. Your audience doesn't really care about that. What matters at the end is how you summarize and how you make allow them to understand that. So what you got to do is you got to focus and define the focus and ask yourself how can I summarize this data? How can I make it snackable and easy to understand? So this leads us to step three and that is to define the focus of the graphic and the story that you want to tell. So you've got to state your unique point of view. Now, your audience actually often respects or is interested at least in the opinion that you have to present. What you want to do is also back it up with facts when possible. And of course, in that case, you often want to back it up with data since we're talking about charts and graphs. Additionally, you want to define what's at stake. And then also what you want to do is do, it must be a complete sentence. When I talk about a complete sentence, the actual chart that you're going to be creating or the graph, you want to have a headline. And on top of that headline, you almost want to ask a question or state it. state in a sentence. So let's look at a couple of examples. I'm going to show you a few before and after. So the key to effective communication, you've got to hone in on your main message. So make your key points stand out. And also, when do people buy on your website? This is the title of this graph here. So it asks a question. It's a full sentence. When do people buy on our website? And if you look below, there's a lot of different elements. to this. There is women's and men's, I don't know, is that women's shoes? Is it men's pants? Is it, you know, it doesn't define that. So there is problem number one there. Number two, there's a large legend here and above it there's actually a number of different rows or segmentations of the dead in different colors. So it's not terrible but the fact of the matter is that, you know, just stare at this for about 15 seconds or so. Do you fully understand it? Now let's simplify this a little bit. Let's look at another example. It's the same information, but it has been simplified. So, same title, but in this case, what we're doing is we're grouping those segmentations into just four quadrants. And you can clearly see that the blue area, which is about 12 to 6 p.m., and, you know, between 12 to 6 p.m., the women's and men's apparel are most often bought on this website. And what we've done is we've actually eliminated the legend. And we've actually brought that into the chart itself. So this allows you to more easily, in a snackable manner, understand this graph. So if you look at it again, this is easier to understand, of course, than the last example. Same data, same information, but you're focusing on the main elements. Step 4 is use physical markers, pencils and paper to storyboard your idea. Now I'm going to show you this next cheat sheet and it's going to look a little complicated. Don't worry about it. It's actually pretty easy to understand once you dive in. Now, what you want to do is matching some of the keywords that I listed in the last example earlier in that four quadrants, and you want to summarize it into this next visual. So let's take a look at it. Now, again, don't be afraid. There's a lot going on here, but in the center is where you're going to... Look from the center and actually work your way and by following this guideline, this workflow, it allows you to determine the type of chart that you can use. Okay, so let's look, let's hone in on a little bit deeper. Now, if you look on this one, we have comparison. Let's just say that you have a composition chart. What do you want to create? Let's say it's a composition and then it's going to be static data. And then if you come down a little bit further, you come down, it's going to be shares or pieces of a whole. So in this case, it could be a pie chart. So this is a great example that allows you to, by having this cheat sheet, I highly recommend you download it. And every time you want to create a chart, you actually go in and follow this guideline. And you can download the PDF. There's a link provided below. You'll be able to use that in every single visual or report or chart you're going to create. Step five, refine your chart by decluttering. Again, simplify it. Simple, simple versus complex. It involves arranging elements, and you want to direct your readers to perceive them in a certain order. Let's go through a few examples, but before that, I want to show you how you actually segment your data. Your visualization should be well-structured. Imagine this slide here. Imagine this is the real estate. for an actual graph. Title, subtitle, content, and there's the footer. In fact, it's very similar to the last episode that I did on how to design your infographic where we talk about there's a header area, there's a body, and there's a footer to your infographic. Very similar. But what you want to do is you only want to have about 20%, so about 12% or so for your title and subtitle, about 8%. Again, let's just say about one-fifth of the total real estate of the top area for the chart. header and subheader and then further down would be the main or the meat of it is going to be the chart itself and another bottom is going to be the footer and that's where you're going to have the sources of the data that you're presenting now let's talk about most important items of the the chart in other words when you're presenting something you want to allow the users I to go towards the focal points so this is a chart about non-market debt depth outstanding And if you look at it, this is like a personal, you know, depth in different individuals. And when you look at this, there's four different lines, well actually five, and in different colors. And you really don't know which one to look at. But perhaps in this case, what you want to do is you want to concentrate on the student depth. So if you look at this naked example, what's happened is everything else has been moved into the back. Meaning by graying out the legend, graying out the other lines, and the only one is the blue one that's actually sticking out. That's the student loans. And you can clearly see that that is easier to understand. So you focus on that. What we've done is actually push all the chart elements to the background. We applied a great color. And then we've used different design techniques to make the item, in this case using color, to stand out. And let's look at this one. So you want to use only two to three colors to highlight important points. This chart here, using complementary colors. There was another episode that I covered about how to use complementary colors. And in this case, you can clearly see that it's easy on the eye and also we're highlighting the key points there. Additionally, you want to use only two or three colors to highlight important points. Very similar to the last one. And this is just a different type of chart. And also, what you want to do is you want to do away with chart grid lines and borders as much as possible. It's okay to have them, but when you can, try to eliminate. Because again, it's about simplicity. It's about allowing your user... and their eye to concentrate on something. So, as an example, this is the slow Comcast speed costing Netflix customers. This was a whole story going on over a number of years. There was a lot about it in the news, and basically there was this battle between Comcast and Netflix, and what happened was, came February 2014, Netflix actually ended up paying Comcast to directly connect to its network. And so as a result, what happened was, it caused a number of calls. to Netflix for slow network complaints actually dropped. So what's happened is we've eliminated the legends, the gray lines, and we're just concentrating on this vertical line showing the February 2014. So that's what that is showing you. Also, the other one is to eliminate legends when possible. Legends are okay, but if you can, eliminate them. Because what you're doing is you're allowing the user to focus on one element versus going back and forth between them. And so here's an example of that's been cleaned up. It's actually gone from a pie chart to an actual bar chart format. And if you look at it, you have taken the legend out and we have the percentages clearly shown over the colored areas. And so what you're doing is you're limiting the eye movement from one end of the chart to the other. And so what you've done is also label the segments, the lines, or the bars directly. So those are a few examples that gives you an idea as far as how to create charts and graphs. Now, I'm talking about in an infographic series here, but really at the end of the day, The same principles that I provided to you, you can follow it through for individual charts, whether you want to embed it to a report, infographic, or presentation. Thank you.

Now when it comes to charts I mean it kind of deserves its own series, its own book and there's a lot of information to go over but what I'm going to do is I'm going to promise you I'm going to break it down into easy short snackable video today that in about 10-15 minutes you'll get a good grasp and understanding. of how to include and integrate charts into your infographics and perhaps your presentations, reports and so on. So I'm going to show you how to tell stories through data today.

Here's the thing, this is you and that actually used to be me as well because most communicators are pretty much scared of numbers. Now that is you know there's a huge amount of volume, there's a lot of volume of data that we have to deal with. You sometimes have to have Large Excel sheets with a lot of tabs and how do you actually correlate that and make it understandable and actually tell stories through it. And often people are you know they run away from it but there really is a way around it. And in today's era you really can't run away from it because you need to embrace data and use it to tell stories.

In fact you think about journalists today. You know there isn't a day goes by that I look at CNN, Fox and other articles that are present on those sites. And as I scroll down, there's always different volumes of data that are actually visualized into charts and graphs. So it is a part of visual communication.

You really got to embrace it and not run away from it. So let's talk about the different steps. There's four steps I'm going to talk about today. Number one, before you start the actual, and before you select the type of chart, before you actually start inputting your data into a chart, you got to understand what you want to do.

So, step one, you got to resist the urge to immediately choose a chart, very similar to how when you want to create a presentation or an infographic, you first have to brainstorm and get things together and then dive into the actual creation process. All right? So, let's talk about the next thing. Now, in terms of, this is a kind of a cross section, it's four quadrants and it's about the four types of charts that you can create. There are many different types of charts but they actually fall into any of these four.

And the question you want to ask yourself first is that is the information data driven or is it conceptual? And also is it declarative or is it explanatory? Because with that you create this cross line and there's a quadrant and depending on what on that quadrant you fall into and I'll show you in a little bit, you're going to decide the type of chart that you're going to use. So for example, if you're explaining a concept.

you're going to be in the lower left quadrant and vice and so on. So that's how you do that. Now this cheat sheet is very valuable and it is going to be included at the bottom of this video on this page and also in the e-book there's a link down below that you can download it and then put it to good use because every time you want to create a chart I highly recommend you tap into that first.

Okay now step two you gotta consult for context before you start. What does that mean? Well you see it's a it's an often overlooked step in the creation of chart and graphs and what you need to do first is take the little time perhaps just a few minutes and then think about the actual context of the visualization you're going to create. So when we talk about context we're talking about the circumstances that form the setting of your data.

Now, this brings me to a few questions you always have to ask yourself. It's actually very similar to a presentation series that I did where before you put together your presentation, you go through this process of asking yourself a few questions. First, you got to know who your audience is. So who is your audience? Because based on the type of audience you're going to be presenting to, it helps you to approach in a manner that resonates with them.

Now, second is what do you want to do? What do you want your audience to know? depending on what you want them to know and what you want to inform them allows you to you know start a certain type of discussion or a topic so that second and number three is you have to establish the actual setting that will be used in you know is this for an event or a conference is this chart going to be a front-facing let's say for sales and marketing purposes or is it for internal within your organization or perhaps is it going to be shared on social media or on your website depending on either one of these The way that you put the chart together or the volume of data you're going to present, it actually reflects on the setting that it will be used in. So you want to take that into consideration as well.

And so the responses to those questions will actually lead us to this last question, and that is how can you use your data to make this point? Now, step three, you have volumes of data, and again, you may have an Excel sheet with hundreds of columns, rows of data, many tabs. Your audience doesn't really care about that. What matters at the end is how you summarize and how you make allow them to understand that. So what you got to do is you got to focus and define the focus and ask yourself how can I summarize this data?

How can I make it snackable and easy to understand? So this leads us to step three and that is to define the focus of the graphic and the story that you want to tell. So you've got to state your unique point of view. Now, your audience actually often respects or is interested at least in the opinion that you have to present. What you want to do is also back it up with facts when possible.

And of course, in that case, you often want to back it up with data since we're talking about charts and graphs. Additionally, you want to define what's at stake. And then also what you want to do is do, it must be a complete sentence.

When I talk about a complete sentence, the actual chart that you're going to be creating or the graph, you want to have a headline. And on top of that headline, you almost want to ask a question or state it. state in a sentence.

So let's look at a couple of examples. I'm going to show you a few before and after. So the key to effective communication, you've got to hone in on your main message. So make your key points stand out. And also, when do people buy on your website?

This is the title of this graph here. So it asks a question. It's a full sentence.

When do people buy on our website? And if you look below, there's a lot of different elements. to this. There is women's and men's, I don't know, is that women's shoes? Is it men's pants?

Is it, you know, it doesn't define that. So there is problem number one there. Number two, there's a large legend here and above it there's actually a number of different rows or segmentations of the dead in different colors. So it's not terrible but the fact of the matter is that, you know, just stare at this for about 15 seconds or so.

Do you fully understand it? Now let's simplify this a little bit. Let's look at another example.

It's the same information, but it has been simplified. So, same title, but in this case, what we're doing is we're grouping those segmentations into just four quadrants. And you can clearly see that the blue area, which is about 12 to 6 p.m., and, you know, between 12 to 6 p.m., the women's and men's apparel are most often bought on this website. And what we've done is we've actually eliminated the legend.

And we've actually brought that into the chart itself. So this allows you to more easily, in a snackable manner, understand this graph. So if you look at it again, this is easier to understand, of course, than the last example.

Same data, same information, but you're focusing on the main elements. Step 4 is use physical markers, pencils and paper to storyboard your idea. Now I'm going to show you this next cheat sheet and it's going to look a little complicated.

Don't worry about it. It's actually pretty easy to understand once you dive in. Now, what you want to do is matching some of the keywords that I listed in the last example earlier in that four quadrants, and you want to summarize it into this next visual.

So let's take a look at it. Now, again, don't be afraid. There's a lot going on here, but in the center is where you're going to... Look from the center and actually work your way and by following this guideline, this workflow, it allows you to determine the type of chart that you can use. Okay, so let's look, let's hone in on a little bit deeper.

Now, if you look on this one, we have comparison. Let's just say that you have a composition chart. What do you want to create?

Let's say it's a composition and then it's going to be static data. And then if you come down a little bit further, you come down, it's going to be shares or pieces of a whole. So in this case, it could be a pie chart. So this is a great example that allows you to, by having this cheat sheet, I highly recommend you download it.

And every time you want to create a chart, you actually go in and follow this guideline. And you can download the PDF. There's a link provided below. You'll be able to use that in every single visual or report or chart you're going to create. Step five, refine your chart by decluttering.

Again, simplify it. Simple, simple versus complex. It involves arranging elements, and you want to direct your readers to perceive them in a certain order. Let's go through a few examples, but before that, I want to show you how you actually segment your data.

Your visualization should be well-structured. Imagine this slide here. Imagine this is the real estate.

for an actual graph. Title, subtitle, content, and there's the footer. In fact, it's very similar to the last episode that I did on how to design your infographic where we talk about there's a header area, there's a body, and there's a footer to your infographic.

Very similar. But what you want to do is you only want to have about 20%, so about 12% or so for your title and subtitle, about 8%. Again, let's just say about one-fifth of the total real estate of the top area for the chart. header and subheader and then further down would be the main or the meat of it is going to be the chart itself and another bottom is going to be the footer and that's where you're going to have the sources of the data that you're presenting now let's talk about most important items of the the chart in other words when you're presenting something you want to allow the users I to go towards the focal points so this is a chart about non-market debt depth outstanding And if you look at it, this is like a personal, you know, depth in different individuals.

And when you look at this, there's four different lines, well actually five, and in different colors. And you really don't know which one to look at. But perhaps in this case, what you want to do is you want to concentrate on the student depth. So if you look at this naked example, what's happened is everything else has been moved into the back.

Meaning by graying out the legend, graying out the other lines, and the only one is the blue one that's actually sticking out. That's the student loans. And you can clearly see that that is easier to understand.

So you focus on that. What we've done is actually push all the chart elements to the background. We applied a great color.

And then we've used different design techniques to make the item, in this case using color, to stand out. And let's look at this one. So you want to use only two to three colors to highlight important points.

This chart here, using complementary colors. There was another episode that I covered about how to use complementary colors. And in this case, you can clearly see that it's easy on the eye and also we're highlighting the key points there.

Additionally, you want to use only two or three colors to highlight important points. Very similar to the last one. And this is just a different type of chart. And also, what you want to do is you want to do away with chart grid lines and borders as much as possible. It's okay to have them, but when you can, try to eliminate.

Because again, it's about simplicity. It's about allowing your user... and their eye to concentrate on something. So, as an example, this is the slow Comcast speed costing Netflix customers. This was a whole story going on over a number of years.

There was a lot about it in the news, and basically there was this battle between Comcast and Netflix, and what happened was, came February 2014, Netflix actually ended up paying Comcast to directly connect to its network. And so as a result, what happened was, it caused a number of calls. to Netflix for slow network complaints actually dropped.

So what's happened is we've eliminated the legends, the gray lines, and we're just concentrating on this vertical line showing the February 2014. So that's what that is showing you. Also, the other one is to eliminate legends when possible. Legends are okay, but if you can, eliminate them. Because what you're doing is you're allowing the user to focus on one element versus going back and forth between them.

And so here's an example of that's been cleaned up. It's actually gone from a pie chart to an actual bar chart format. And if you look at it, you have taken the legend out and we have the percentages clearly shown over the colored areas.

And so what you're doing is you're limiting the eye movement from one end of the chart to the other. And so what you've done is also label the segments, the lines, or the bars directly. So those are a few examples that gives you an idea as far as how to create charts and graphs. Now, I'm talking about in an infographic series here, but really at the end of the day, The same principles that I provided to you, you can follow it through for individual charts, whether you want to embed it to a report, infographic, or presentation. Thank you.

Transcript for:Creating Impactful Infographics with Charts

Transcript for:
Creating Impactful Infographics with Charts