Credit: ba1969
Infographics are quite hot these days. Many of them have gone viral thanks to top blogs republishing them and people sharing them on Facebook, Twitter, and other top social networks. It is easy to assume that if you create an infographic, people will take time to share it. That is absolutely not true. Lousy infographics won’t make it too far. Even if you do get a few shares, the feedback coming back to you could be harsh if your infographic is awful.
Many infographic designers get too attached to their work and fail to see what is setting them back. Here are 7 mistakes you want to avoid if you do not want to end up with lousy infographics:
- too much information: infographics are not meant to be as comprehensive as the Bible. While you should not cut corners as you develop your infographics, you do want to break things down and include only relevant information in your work. Too much data may even confuse some of your visitors.
- wrong colors: the colors you use in your graphics are important. The right combination of colors can make your infographic catchy. The wrong ones could keep your work back or kill it off completely.
- terrible layout: there is a difference between developing a high quality infographic and treating your work as a piece of napkin. Most viral infographics have awesome layouts. The goal of your work should be to present your data in an organized, elegant fashion.
- lack of graphs: making graphs and charts for your infographic is not that difficult. Without those, you will have a hard time grabbing the attention of your audience. My own data tells me that infographics with graphs and charts get more love on social networking sites.
- terrible research: an infographic that is based on wrong data won’t get you too far. If you have hired someone to design visuals for you, the least you can do is check their research to make sure they have used the right material.
- no connection between data points: people won’t tweet or share your work on Twitter/Facebook just because it looks “cool.” You need to make clear connections among the data points you are using in your visuals. Don’t just throw information on your infographic for the sake of doing it.
- vagueness: going back to the previous point, if your infographic is vague and confusing to your audience, you have probably wasted your time.
Developing killer infographics takes a lot of work but it will be worth it in the end. Not every type of infographic goes viral. But those that do bring webmasters a ton of backlinks and traffic.