Visual.ly wants to be Powerpoint for Infographics - and that's a problem

-
Who doesn't love a good infographic right? But not all infographics are good. To democratize Data visualization is great in theory but making presentations more accessible seemed like a great idea too.

Instead we end up with word documents and cue cards with animation masquerading  as a presentation.

What makes a good infographic is how it makes the data accessible. Visualization makes it easier to draw conclusions about the data versus just staring at numbers. There is a conclusion to be drawn, an end in mind. To accomplish that  requires design principles, an understanding of the data and the point of the dataset.

How many presentations have you seen that you didn't get the point? Some might have had some great graphics and but in the end there was no convincing, there was no end-goal. Even Mr. Langille admits that many people Hate powerpoint now.

Visual.ly needs to aim higher than powerpoint. I think they will do great in the short-term. With their concept of themes and constraining the datasets to hashtags, FB pages they will be able to ensure quality design. Once they open up to other datasets such as poll data if they open up the themes you could a lot of fugly infographics.

Related Links
http://www.fastcodesign.com/1669241/with-new-tool-visually-wants-to-replace-powerpoint-with-infographics
http://www.visual.ly

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

de-cluttter

-
it really is amazing what you can do without when you must. Our home is going up on the market so the agent came by and suggested that we cleanup. Now our place is not dirty, my wife would never let that happen. All the sweaters you don't wear,But might want to; extra dishes, utensils, printed articles you intend to read... should we throw them out? doesn't that just increase waste, where we might print/buy it again later on when we Do need it? Perhaps we need to examine how we managed without it and just continue. Or if it's aspiration-based clutter just give ourselves a reasonable deadline to put it into practice. The idea of aspirational clutter is one that hits home. Things that you don't use, but embody qualities that you aspire for yourself. A treadmill doubling as a clothes hanger; one day you will get in shape. Books you've never read that fill shelves; the budding philosopher that never bloomed. The extra server, more of a footrest than anything; the proje...
Read more

TechCrunch should stay out of economics

-
I was startled when I read Warren Buffet's Op-Ed piece in the NYT .. He basically burned down the GOP/Fox News "Job-creators can't be taxed" house of cards narrative. Buffet definitely has the cred to state how investors and businesses have been operating over the years. Investment during times with higher taxes like the 80s and 90s led to a Lot of people getting rich, people created jobs and grew businesses. There are some of the lowest taxes on the wealthy right now, and there definitely aren't a lot of jobs being created. Sounded like straight talk. Then a ridiculous piece by Michael Arrington of TechCrunch nearly dropped me out of my seat. One of those pieces where you're waiting for the sarcastic punch-line only to find out that the writer was serious. Arrington states that Buffet's true motive is to keep others from getting rich. He don't like the "New Money". Otherwise he would've proposed a different tax which would hit him har...
Read more

watt is in the bag?

-
I was at my local library yesterday picking up some reading material. I went to the check-out desk and found a a small stand from the power company. There were about two dozen packages. Within each package was $$$ http://tinyurl.com/2tg6x6 What a fantastic idea on multiple fronts. The campaign to conserve energy is all well and good but you need to enable people to understand their drain on the system their footprint etc. I've seen many sites on calculating offsets but that was estimation and felt more like guesswork. This watt reader allows you to plug any device into the wattreader which plugs directly into the wall. From there the reader will let you know exactly how much current is being drawn. This will allow you to understand the phantom load of many common devices. A great application to help people better understand their footprint, and how much it costs them on a daily basis.
Read more