Re: _"Infographics_â_A_Special_Mode_of_Technical_C ommun ication"

[Lin Sims <ljsims -dot- ml -at- gmail -dot- com>]

I wouldn't think so. Again, harking back to Minard's graphic, there's very
little text actually involved beyond a brief description of what the black
and grey lines represent (number of troops and direction of travel) plus a
listing of information sources. Other than that, it's mostly numbers.

In classic techwr-l fashion, the answer is, "it depends". :D


On Fri, Jul 25, 2014 at 12:33 PM, David Artman <david -at- davidartman -dot- com>
wrote:

>    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?
>
> References
>
>    1. mailto:ljsims -dot- ml -at- gmail -dot- com
>    2. mailto:david -at- davidartman -dot- com
>    3. mailto:ERIKA_y -at- rad -dot- com
>    4. mailto:ccardimon -at- m-s-g -dot- com
>    5. mailto:techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
>    6. mailto:techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
>    7.
> http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0002w4&topic_id=1&topic=
>    8. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Minard.png
>    9. mailto:david -at- davidartman -dot- com
>   10. mailto:ERIKA_y -at- rad -dot- com
>
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-- 
Lin Sims

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