When people think of concepts like information or research, they often think of the textual representation of data and ideas: essays; journal articles; research papers; bullet-points on a PowerPoint slide; arrays in a spreadsheet. However, information can also be represented visually - often to greater effect. These pictures or graphics are often referred to as ‘infographics’. So I know you are probably thinking, if pictures are so great why am I reading a paragraph of text right now? Good question!
Well the answer is that lots of different formats and methods can be used to present your ideas, and which one you choose usually depends upon the context of the information and what exactly you wish to communicate. For example, using visual representations rather than text often results in greater clarity and increased impact. Your audience can also often assimilate your key messages much more quickly than if they have to read several paragraphs of text. This does not just include graphical representations of quantitative data like bar charts or pie charts (also called ‘data visualisations’) which most people are familiar with. For instance, many research studies are presented as poster displays or you can use mind maps to illustrate qualitative concepts and relationships. Conversely, if you need to communicate a lot of very detailed and complex information, using visual methods alone will not work very well, but a well-chosen infographic or two can still be incorporated within a written research paper to highlight certain
aspects of your data for example.
If you choose to represent your research ideas visually, it is important that you spend time thinking about information design and which visualisation method will be the most appropriate and effective for your message. The Periodic Table of Visualization Methods produced by visualliteracy.org may help to give you some ideas of which methods to use for which contexts. The economists out there will notice Su (the supply and demand curve), which represents a form of strategy visualisation, whilst project management students will be familiar with Gc (Gantt charts) - a type of concept visualisation. So if you really want to understand how to design information visually, stop reading and try looking at a particularly good example of an infographic:
the other periodic table.
