Infographics have become popular on the internet as a new way to present data in a more engaging way than a simple spreadsheet. They usually are huge vertical images with plenty of statistics and charts that present data in vibrant colors and interesting typography.

Our group, lucky number 7, is working on an infographic from a site called ‘Flowtown‘ and the original graphic (Who Are Social Gamers), in full, can be found here.  When analyzing an infographic, I think the most important things to look at are the charts/graphs, text, and colors. My “slice” of the infographic is the section dealing with the behavior of social gamers.

There are three main types of graphs used in the above image.  We have a pie chart, a bar graph… and a double-ball chart (name awaiting copyright). One of the best parts of these data representations is the SIZE of them.  All of them make the data clearly readable and have the actual statistics clearly marked. The pie chart is great for highlighting whether social gamers play console games or not because there’s just one statistic to show and, even without seeing the “67%”, the reader gets a good idea of the percent of people that do. The bar chart is also great for showing data because the reader can quickly assess why people choose to play social games. I’m not so hot on the third double-ball chart because it’s harder to understand when compared to more traditional graphs and charts. The good thing is that you can clearly see, by the size of the circle, the relation that desktop vs laptop vs phone share when it comes to social gaming.

The text in this infographic is pretty clear.  The font they used has very thin letters and the kerning is very tight to fit in a lot of info in a small space.  It’s also very obvious that text takes backseat to the graphics, but it’s very clean here and compliments the infographic well.

‘Who Are Social Gamers’ uses many vibrant colors, especially for the charts.  The colors really accent and bring out the data that the infographic is trying to highlight.  In our own infographic, I think it’ll be very important to choose the correct colors to really bring out the data we’re trying to present.

After looking this one over, I’m just hoping that our group can come up with something half as good.  We’ll have to do a GIMP boot camp before the due date perhaps.

– Paul