Functional design for infographics

Separating the infographic development process into steps can help you to get your ideas clear and improve the effectiveness of the final product.

Step 1 – context

The first step is asking questions about the context of the infographic. The key areas to consider are:

• audience – for example, who are they, what do they want to know, what is familiar to them, what is new, what level of information do they need? (see Understanding your users)
• type of presentation– for example, will it be printed or online, will it appear on a poster or presentation, does it need to be interactive, how big can it be?
• capacity – for example, who will be doing the work, is it all inhouse or are you getting a professional designer?

The answers to these questions will help to guide the rest of the process. For example, an audience with a non-English-speaking background might change the words you can use; doing the project inhouse might limit the complexity of the drawing; or being only able to print A4 will limit how much text you can have.

Step 2 – the story

Getting the story right is crucial to making an effective infographic. For example, authors sometimes want an infographic to ‘just summarise the report’. That’s not enough. You have to have a clear message you can put into words.

You should be able to summarise your story in 1 clear sentence. Think about what you want your infographic to achieve, and what you want your audience to understand and remember.

The sentence should be a meaningful statement, not a heading:

Try to get the message clear before you move on to visuals. However, the process can be iterative – sometimes when you go to sketch an idea you find it’s too complex and you need to work further on the message or to break it into parts.

Step 3 – the visuals

The next stage is to start to develop how you will convey your story. While this will be a combination of visuals and text, it’s a good idea to start with the visuals, as they will have the highest impact with your audience. If you will be hiring someone to complete the visual design, you may still need to think about how to convey visual information.

Effective infographics are often about finding a metaphor to convey the story. For example, an infographic about growth can show a growing plant or a crop; an infographic about a process can show machinery parts; and an infographic about step-by-step instructions can show a road or map. Use meaningful visual metaphors that your audience will understand.

To get your ideas clear, it can be helpful to brainstorm, alone or with colleagues. You can work with hard-copy sketches or any drawing or design software to develop your ideas.

At the end of this step you should have a draft drawing of your infographic.

Step 4 – the text

Once you have a sketch of the visuals, see what text you will need to add to support the story. This may be just labels for different elements of your story, or it may be short sentences or paragraphs that provide explanation. Make sure every word on the page needs to be there.

Step 5 – putting it all together

The final stage is to bring your initial visuals and text together and refine the concept. You can develop a final drawing to give to a professional designer, or work with a designer throughout the process.

Use design principles to support the story of your infographic and improve the impact on your audience.

Test your ideas with other people. Ideally, these will be members of your audience, but colleagues, friends and family can also help to provide a different perspective to see if your ideas are working. Adjust your ideas to take their feedback into account, and continue to iterate and refine to reach your final product.

You can then produce final design files to be included in your document, website or presentation, or to go to print.