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Thanks, Lin--sufficient definition, certainly. By that definition, I've
used them most of my career (especially network/port diagrams). But do
you think an image stops being an infographic if there are no sentence
structures (e.g., a photo with several textual callouts, some of which
might be option lists for components: definitely data, but nothing like
the common 'stat-stack' or the body-movement graphics for gun carry and
figure skating at the link)?
Aside: Seems like one would definitely would want to save/deliver them
as SVG instead of a raster-graphic format, for scalability on different
devices and for translation or machine reading.
David
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: _"Infographics_aEUR"_A_Special_Mode_of_Technical_C ommun
ication"
From: Lin Sims <[1]ljsims -dot- ml -at- gmail -dot- com>
Date: Thu, July 24, 2014 3:43 pm
To: David Artman <[2]david -at- davidartman -dot- com>
Cc: Erika Yanovich <[3]ERIKA_y -at- rad -dot- com>, "Cardimon, Craig"
<[4]ccardimon -at- m-s-g -dot- com>, "[5]techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com"
<[6]techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
You can hardly do better than Tufte for highlighting good examples of
infographics:
[7]http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0002w4&to
pic_id=1&topic=
In essence, an infographic is meant to be an information-dense visual
representation of data that presents without distorting or obscuring
the information you are trying to convey.
Perhaps the all-time classic representation is Minard's graphical
depiction of Napoleon's invasion of Russia, showing the size of the
Grand Army in relation to the army's movements (location and distance
traveled over a period of time) and temperature.
[8]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Minard.png
Regards,
Lin
On Wed, Jul 23, 2014 at 1:02 PM, David Artman
<[9]david -at- davidartman -dot- com> wrote:
> From: Erika Yanovich <[1][10]ERIKA_y -at- rad -dot- com>
> Can't think of an application in manuals, but I'm not very
creative
at the moment (pre-coffee).
I was thinking something similar would be a great way to express
options in a complex system and how they interact... but that
could be
more like a Venn diagram or flowchart than an 'infographic' as
depicted
in that article.
Also, are Ikea manuals infographics?
Heck... what IS an infographic? Is it like art--you know it if
you see
it, but it's hard to define comprehensively without
over-generalizing?
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