by MU Instructional Designers
October 4, 2024
10-12 min read
A picture says a thousand words, and an infographic says even more! In this age of abundant visual stimuli, most of us learn more quickly and effectively when presented with visual content. Data visualizations, in particular, take quantitative data and communicate it in a way that tells a story.
The story an infographic tells (based on the data it shares, how that data is framed, and what design choices have been made) communicates your personality and perspective. Even if you’re not sharing details about your own life, be sure to convey your humor, passion, or “take” on an issue with your infographic design.
Diverse Perspectives
As with other class materials, consider what perspectives are being represented in your infographic. This starts with your data — does it represent the diversity of the content or populations that you’re discussing? Are there viewpoints or experiences that are being left out? Diverse representation is a Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy (CSP) practice.
Make infographics engaging.
Make infographics engaging.
Organized
The whole point of an infographic is to present a lot of data quickly and effectively. If your infographic is not organized, then this will not be the case. Consider the sequence of the points you want to make and then use graphic design principles to organize them in a way that is clear visually. (For details on pre-production organization and graphic design principles, check out Create an Infographic from the Tech Support Knowledge Base.)
Chunked
Remember an infographic should be designed to tell a story in a concise format. Infographics are not pages and pages long — they are short and to the point. Ideally, an infographic should be designed to be read in 40-60 seconds. If you have a lot of information that you want to cover, consider a series of infographics, each covering a particular subtopic.
Chunking content is a key UDL strategy too! (UDL checkpoint 3.3: Cultivate multiple ways of knowing and making meaning)
Provide options for student response and reflection.
Provide options for student response and reflection.
Students will retain information much more effectively if they have to do something with it. This is supported by active learning AND the strategies for UDL checkpoint 3.4: Maximize transfer & generalization.
When you present students with an infographic, consider inviting them to annotate it with questions, comments, and/or additional data (works well in VISME). You could also use an infographic with an online discussion forum or with some self-check questions for basic understanding.
Model ethical behavior.
Model ethical behavior.
Accessible to Everyone
Consider students who may have different cultural backgrounds. Be careful not to make assumptions about what your students already know based on how they look or how they speak (part of the Design for Learning Framework under “Humanized Environment” [CSP]). Make sure that students in the class have the necessary background knowledge to decode any symbols or references in your infographic that may not be clear (UDL checkpoint 3.1: Connect prior knowledge to new learning).
In addition to the content of your infographic, consider how accessible the format itself is to diverse learners. Infographics are a great way to make information accessible to students who process information more effectively visually and/or have language barriers. However, infographics are less accessible to those who are visually impaired or have visual processing issues, so creating a text transcript gives you the best of both worlds. The video below will show you how to create a transcript and use a bit.ly link to share it.
Digital Citizenship
Your own infographics are also an excellent opportunity to model digital citizenship for your students. Clearly cite your sources so students are aware of the value you place on using credible sources to support ideas. Consider checking out Murray Library’s Information Literacy Libguide for resources.
When you’re creating your infographic, you must consider copyright issues. Respecting copyright is a crucial element of digital integrity and social responsibility, but copyright laws can be hard to understand and take real effort to investigate. Consider any images, direct quotes, or data sources in your infographic that are owned by others (including AI tools) — be sure to give credit where due.
A great resource for faculty is theCopyright at Messiah page from our website. In particular, we recommend checking out the Messiah University Fair Use Evaluator. Copyright applies to your work too. Will you choose to keep your infographic private to your class or share it more broadly with a Creative Commons license? This is an opportunity to model sharing your own work for your students.
Consider This . . .
From the various concepts in your course(s), is there a concept that could be represented visually? A concept that has key data/statistics would be a good fit.
Learn More!
Annotated Bibliography– A collection of research on the topic of instructional infographics.