Sensitivity and Information Graphics
We must be sensitive about what we release into the world and how others come in contact with it.
The best infographic is an epiphany. It captures time, it can uncover patterns in massive amounts of data and it can turn the abstract into the definite. Infographics have an emotional power because they can show you an idea — or a relationship — or how something works — in seconds. We respond to that. Their persuasiveness surprises, enlightens and can sometimes move us.
How active have I been this week?
How is the climate changing?
How are the schools segregating?
How close was the electoral vote?
How can I make more money?
Infographics are effective because they are visual. We receive input from all of our five senses (sight, touch, hearing, smell and taste), but significantly more information from our vision than any of the other four. About fifty percent of our brain is dedicated to visual stimuli and images are processed by our brains faster than their textual counterparts. Matched with our ever-increasing short attention span, Infographics feed our curiosity in our rapid-all-consuming digital culture.
The visual ingredient to this information, however, through its representation — colour, shape, and perception, can also conjure up far more in our minds than just the information it set forth to communicate.
Which brings me to the question:
What else are we communicating with our infographics?
Some designers may consider the elements of design as decorative in the medium of information design, and those decorations should be kept clear from the information so not to muddy its clarity. Others may disagree, arguing that design is considered and helps to aid the information by stimulating such parts of our brains with added meaning. Here lies the problem:
Example: We see an infographic showing the number of votes for the State of Ohio for democrats versus republicans. The democratic votes are represented as small blue dots. The republican votes are represented in red, however these dots are larger. Maybe a mistake, maybe for emphasis, but why are they larger? Do larger dots represent status? Do they represent groups of people? Or was it merely an unconsidered design decision from someone who lacked consistency? Design directors all over the states groan over their morning coffee as they debate why someone wouldn’t make both the coloured dots consistent. The question of ‘Who won Ohio?’ is long forgotten…
Introducing Edward Tufte
Edward Tufte is a statistician, artist and Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Statistics, and Computer Science atYale University. He wrote, designed and self-published 4 classic books on data visualisation. The New York Times described him as “Leonardo da Vinci of data” and Bloomberg as the “Galileo of graphics”.
Edward strongly believed that the sole purpose of infographics should be to enlighten and ideally, their ‘design’ elements should remain transparent.
“Design should disappear in the favour of the information. Infographics loaded with gratuitous decorations or window dressings are chart junk. Such graphic devices serve as merely to entertain rather than educate”
We shouldn’t decorate because it mis-communicates states Tufte. Whilst removing the emotion of visuals out of the equation allows for a more reasoned approach to designing information graphics — we are communicating with humans after all, and we all know that we as emotional beings find it much harder to digest cold, hard theories and facts.
Rational communication whilst effective, is not entertaining and thus, cannot capture the hearts and minds of the people, which creates a real problem in today’s age: a tension between objectively informing in the face of subjectivity. Just watch the news, or read a newspaper, journalists struggle with this notion everyday.
Otto Neurath and the Invention of the Isotype
Otto Neurath, an Austrian Philosopher knew he’d only be boring his audience by trying to explain with statistics and words, so instead, he called upon his childhood fascination with the design language of hieroglyphics and helped to develop giant coloured diagrams using simple images of people, animals and objects. He named these representations: Isotypes.
His grand vision of creating a visual universal language to informand inspire would also break down barriers geographically across cultures, because as he stated:
Words seperate. Pictures unite.
Like others before him: Hieroglyphics in 7000–4000BCE, William Playfair’s invention of pie charts in 1790, Alexander von Humboldt and Carl Ritter’s invention of modern geography in 1820 and Florence Nightingale’s polar area diagrams in 1857, Neurath’s ‘Isotype’ language became highly popular, and helped to establish many best design practices still used today along with the look and feel of modern signage.
Neurath’s pictorial isotypes created the unique ability to break down barriers of misunderstanding across all languages and cultures using universal truths to help people make connections. Of course, today we are inundated with imagery that it seems so commonplace, it’s easy to see how these pictures could lose their perceived worth.
Today’s Information Design
Lets jump ahead to 2010. 75 years later, the landscape is much different from back then. We have the internet, information is more readily available and younger generations are put in contact with it from a much earlier age, these data visualisations helping inform and shape their own ideas as they enter adulthood. Infographics themselves though, in their construction haven’t changed a vast amount since Otto Neurath’s early drawings. We still use iconography in today’s graphic design, signage and of course now, experience design.
This type of information design has been readily used for all sorts of cultural events, from entertainment, to the economy to sensitive subject matters such as war and poverty. And this is where I think designers have a greater responsibility when choreographing sensitive subject material that will become readily accessible through major news outlets.
For seven years, MGMT, a design studio based in Brooklyn, New York created an infographic for the op-ed page of The New YorkTimes depicting the number of military and civilian fatalities in Iraq and Afghanistan. Initially limited to the first two weeks of the year, the data then included the entire month of January and used icons to represent a one-to-one ratio for each individual. The infographics were accessed by millions over the globe and were heavily inspired by the visual language of Otto Neurath — icons representing each type of military fatality and case of death being organised chronologically.
There are a number of issues with this infographic that we should address:
- At first sight, the isotypes fictionalise the war as an organised and colourless experience. The traumatic events of these soldiers deaths — explosion, gunshot, wounded, is dismissed because the reality behind the event is stripped away as men and women are reduced to numbers and objects.
- Whilst colour helps to separate type of soldier and provide a visual element that helps to arouse viewers, it gives no indication of their appearance, gender or origin. In the process, we don’t see them as people, merely as numbers and they are sadly denied the tragedy of their demise.
- Designers have a responsibility not to desensitise their audience. For a younger, more impressionable demographic, education around the harshness and cruelty of war must be a natural part of the experience, for without it, we look at these events through a simplified lens. We are encouraged to think about the colour and the design elements, instead of the gaps of information being left out.
“Instead of drawing our attention to the gaps that always exist in representation, iconic experiences encourage us to subconsciously fill in the gaps and then to believe there were no gaps in the first place… This is a paradox of representation. It may deceive most when we think it works best.”
So how do we as designers, think about how we use the tools we have, to illuminate these gaps and ensure we plug them where appropriate?
As designers, what is our responsibility?
How can we turn real data into real stories with real weight?
1. Focus on the emotional elements
Let’s shift our focus and begin to re-think about the information that’s being communicated here.
An obvious part of the information is to communicate the number of fatalities, but we must now start to think about the emotional and sensitive elements of the reality that has taken place. Who were these people, what were their age, what did they look like, did they have families, where were they when the events happened and how best can we remember them?
How can we start to use insight and design to represent these aspects?
2. Bring meaning to your design assets
For one, iconography may be the weapon of choice for such a medium, but these icons are ‘people’. Perhaps photography; images of the soldiers themselves is far more appropriate — we all know that photography is a medium that has emotionally moved people for centuries.
The use of colour may need to be used more sparingly, for the colours here, evoke connotations of excitement, and joy.
We should also consider layout — is an organised structure really the best representation of what is actually a chaotic and disorganised mess in its real-world counterpart?
3. Consider the future of our digital platforms
Change all these elements, and information design might look very different.
This of course, isn’t without its problems. The use of photography for example, to portray sensitive information around people’s identities also poses its own risks and problems with the changing legislation around data protection and identity, but these are questions we must ask ourselves at the outset of designing such a communication device. Is realism rather than fiction something that is important to our audience?
4. Always, tell a story.
Well-designed Information graphics have the potential to tell a story, to provoke emotions or add an emotional layer to real statistical data that alone are just facts and figures. As designers, we must ask ourselves the question:
‘How can we make the invisible human emotions felt about the information visible, turning data into real stories with real weight?
Therefore, the added emotional layer and sensitivity to the information can not only enrich the information but also the viewer.
For a more visual read to this story, please visit my readymag profile.
Luke Burroughs is a visual designer working at Foolproof; an experience design studio. You can follow him on Instagram. To submit questions to Luke or Foolproof, please send an email to luke.burroughs@foolproof.co.uk
