At Mime we are often asked by clients to produce a summary infographic drawing out key findings from our research, and many of our data products include infographics as part of the service. We’ve written this blog to help explain why we use infographics, to provide some previous examples used for different purposes, and to share a little about the process we go through to make really impactful infographics.
Why use infographics?
Simply put, it’s to provide a visual summary of the key points from the analysis or research we have carried out, be that from hard data or qualitative findings, for example from interviews and desk research. This is particularly helpful for people who don’t have time to read a full report, but also useful as a quick reference guide for clients and our team to access key stats, quotes or other findings.
What types of infographics do we produce?
Our infographics typically fall into one of five categories:
- Summarising findings from our research, particularly a long report – These will often appear right at the start of the report, before the executive summary, but also work as standalone documents alongside (such as the Inclusion in London Schools example here and below)
- An explainer to tell a story in simple language from complex analysis – Interesting findings sometimes result from quirks in the way things are measured, and an infographic can be a good way of explaining exactly why this happens (such as the gender pay gap example here and below)
- Highlighting key stats for a client to use in promotion – For example, this might be for charities to highlight their impact to encourage donations or access grants (such as the Carney’s example here and below)
- As part of the annual licence for our data products – These will follow the same template for each client and are updated annually, drawing out particularly large changes or differences to benchmarks from our more detailed dashboards (such as the SEND Dashboard example below and on this page)
- To depict a timeline of events – This could be to describe a project methodology, or some key milestones in a sector (such as the education timeline shown here and the LSE example below)
Increasing levels of detail
Our data product licences typically follow the structure shown here, with increasing levels of detail the further down you go. The infographic sits at the top of the triangle, presenting an overview of the most important messages.
Examples of our infographics
>> Carneys Community – This is the second page of an infographic designed to highlight the incredible work that Carney’s do for vulnerable young people in South London. We pulled together statistics from surveys and case studies, and used Carney’s own photos of young people they support, and applied the Carney’s colour scheme. It also includes a call to action button to donate to the charity.
<< Inclusion in London Schools Report – This shows the second page of an infographic produced for London Councils to summarise the findings from a 70 page report. It covers research findings, challenges identified and recommendations. The report also includes a six page executive summary, but the infographic was shared with politicians and journalists to give them a super-quick overview of the research.
>> Gender Pay Gap – We carried out detailed analysis of the reasons behind the gender pay gap in the education system. And because the findings were slightly counter-intuitive, we chose to visualise how the pay gap could be reduced in a one page infographic.
<< SEND Dashboard – Our dashboard service for analysis of data on Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) includes an infographic to summarise the key performance data from the dashboard – both good and bad. Specifically it highlights where a local authority’s performance has changed dramatically, or where there is a large difference to other local authorities.
>> Post-16 Trajectories – London has a particularly interesting educational picture; results at the end of primary school and at GCSE are better than elsewhere in the country, yet seemingly not so great at A Level. However, when we carried out research on the topic for the Greater London Authority (GLA) we found the picture was not as simple as it first appeared. We were able to explain why the way A Level performance was measured was affecting how London appeared in performance measures, and summarise it in this infographic.
<< LSE Influential Academics – Back in 2013 we were awarded Viz of the Day by Tableau for our innovative interactive timeline which explored the history of influential academics at LSE across different eras. The viz contained a summary of each academic’s career, along with videos and catalogued research work.
It’s a nice example of using Tableau as a ‘front end’ for infographics, in addition to it being a great tool for analysis.
What is our process for producing an infographic?
The exact process will vary depending on which of the above types of infographic we are producing. However, broadly we:
- Carry out research and analysis – This usually means that all the analysis for a project has been completed before we start work on the infographic. If it’s an infographic to summarise a written report, this means the report is in final draft stage – just waiting for the executive summary to be written.
- Decide which are the most important findings – The challenge for the team is deciding what to include, and what to leave out, and this is not an easy task! This will normally be a bullet point list of findings organised into subcategories.
Tip: When producing an infographic to summarise a written research report, a What… Why… But… So… structure can help (What goal is the project trying to achieve or measure? Why is it important? But what are the challenges in achieving the goal? So what recommendations are suggested to overcome these challenges?)
- Organise the content into a logical flow – We want to take the reader on a journey through the infographic. Ideally one point should lead directly into the next. So we rearrange the content from the previous step into an order the makes sense for the reader, irrespective of the order in which we carried out the analysis, or even the order it appear in the report. This should happen outside of the infographic, for example using Word, so we can easily rearrange the content until we are happy with the flow.
Tip: In a bullet point or numbered list in Word, hold down Shift + Alt and use the up and down arrow keys to move the individual bullets
- Abbreviate the content – We need to convey the same meaning from the full report or analysis in as few words, or images, as possible. This is often easier said than done. However, we train the team on how to cut or use simpler words without changing meaning. This also means not simply taking a chart from a report; for example, we often take off some bars from bar charts because they don’t contribute to the story we are telling in the infographic.
- Put into an infographic layout – We then place the content sequentially onto our infographic canvas, adding subtitles with different font sizes, changing the alignment and so on. There are lots of tools that provide templates for infographics, but we often like more freeform design approaches, for example using Figma or even something like PowerPoint. We normally use one or two page A4 portrait designs.
- Add design elements – We don’t think it matters exactly what design elements you use, it’s more about having a nice visual feel to the infographic that is on brand (either the Mime brand or our client’s brand, depending on what’s been agreed). We have a bank of content we can draw on including icons, cartoon style graphics and arrows that we can easily change the colour of to match the theme.
- Refine – Once everything is laid out and the design elements added, we often find that infographic looks cramped. And white space is essential to good visual design. So, we apply another critical eye and work even harder to cut out less important points and make the words even tighter and pithier!
Infographics and AI
For some of our standard data products we can automate much of the process above. The example here is taken from a service we offer for primary schools across a local authority or MAT, which automatically identifies and summarises the relative strengths and areas for improvement for each school. It looks at thousands of data points from our detailed data dashboards, works out which of these are particularly striking, ranks them in order of importance then arranges the key stats into an infographic template. It then even chooses icons that are appropriate for each stat – lots of fun to watch it in action!
Final thoughts
We love infographics at Mime; they are an incredibly powerful and engaging way of conveying a wide range of types of data, including qualitative research findings such as quotes and case studies. And they aren’t as difficult as you might think to produce – the tricky part is identifying the key points to include and the logical flow. Once that’s done, it’s not a costly exercise to pull the final designed infographic together.
If you want to learn more about our infographic work, please get in touch!
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