Interactive Infographics

Infographics are a popular form of data visualisation. Many brands use infographics as a way to promote their websites and products, treating them like a flashy press release or a blog post that can be shared with a wide audience. But how can you make sure that people will engage with and share your content?

Interactive infographics are a great way of attracting the attention of the people who see it. People appreciate interactive content because it is different. And posting such content will help to stand out from the crowd. Interactive content holds attention and if the interactivity is well designed it helps to illustrate points and improves understanding of the topic at hand.

One of the simplest forms of interactivity is having comments, annotations or even extra graphics fly out of the image when you move the mouse over particular parts of it. This can expand on information provided in the basic graphic, or accentuate particular points.

An extension of this is relevant animations; for example, you could show data travelling along a wire in an infographic about Internet usage, a piece of food cooking in a nutrition infographic, or someone riding a bike to illustrate a point about exercise. All of these things are easy to animate and can help the reader to visualise the data they are looking at.

Some interactive infographics accept data from the end user and use that data to customise the infographic. If you are interested in, say, geographical statistics, then you can do a lot by collecting basic information from your users.

If you decide to deploy infographics, make sure that statistics are double-checked. It is best to not publish any statistics that may confuse users or put their safety at risk. Think carefully about the content you present and the message it sends. Remember that infographics spread quickly and you do not want to be held responsible for spreading incorrect or misleading information to your readers.