TL;DR: Leverage Data and
Graphics To Make Your Long
Stories Short
Mike Sweeney, CPSM
SMPS Virginia Annual Conference
2/24/2017
Happy Throwback Thursday!
#tbt 2013
Happy Throwback Thursday!
#tbt 2015
“[INFOGRAPHIC]”
• Overused, Underwhelming
• “[INFOGRAPHIC]” can be
anything
– Infographic != Data Visualization
– Clickbait and “visual wallpaper”
• They’re laborious to produce
even when they fail
• Not always worth the expense!
(we’ll show you when)
Focus Of This Presentation
• 2 case studies that show various problems
and pitfalls
• Specifically using infographics to market
ideas, products, approaches
• Not tool-centered, data-centered, or
graphics-centered
• Storytelling-centered
Context and Purpose
Context:
Who, Where, etc.
Purpose:
Why An Infographic?
Original -> Redesign
Past Masters
Three Famous Infographics And
How They Got Made
“Figurative Map…Russian Campaign of 1812”
Charles Joseph Minard, 1869
(This is the “Free Bird” of Infographics!)
“Coxcomb Diagrams”
Florence Nightingale, 1869
Periodic Table Of The Elements
Modern
1929: Deming (Merck & Co.)
Original
1862: De Chancourtois
“The properties of
bodies are the
properties of numbers.”
- A. E. B. De Chancourtois
“Coxcombs”
F. Nightingale
“Vis Tellurique”
De Chancourtois
“Free Bird!”
C. J. Minard
Context, Purpose, and Passion
• Minard
– Remind France of the cost of its wars
• Nightingale
– Show that more soldiers were dying in hospital
than in combat
– Agitate for hospital funding
• De Chancourtois
– Demonstrate periodic function of known
elements’ properties; present a system to guide
search for new elements
Interlude #1: Data
• With a partner, in 90 seconds:
• Describe a problem you need to
communicate visually
– Who is your intended audience?
(e.g. mgmt, team, public, client)
– What data exists?
– What format is the data in?
– Is it complete or in progress?
Case 1:
Show The Current State of A/E/C
Marketing Ability
How Do You Get An Entire
Industry To Up Its Game?
Use An Infographic To:
• Appeal to architects, marketers, and visual types
• Show that A/E/C firms were slow or ineffective in
marketing their projects on their website
• Show the current state of normal
• Show an alarming statistic
• Show disproportionality and explain significance
• Show all our data in an appealing way
• Showcase the good actors, shame the bad actors
– And encourage non-actors to participate!
Research Question
How effective are A/E/C firms at
marketing their newer work?
To find out,
Find information about recently completed
and reported projects on member firm websites
Source: Boston Society of Architects/AIA
Chapter Letter Mar/Apr
132 projects : 42 member firms
Research Method – Variables
• Recorded for each project
– firm name
– home page URL
– type of firm
– project name
– project page URL
(if present)
– date website was reviewed
– Project Status (category)
– Did a project
photograph
appear in the
publication?
• Completed
• Not Completed
• Other
• (Y/N)
Infographic Showed –
Variables
• Firm
– Agility (…)
– firm (name withheld)
– type of firm discipline (color)
– Firms relative to
peers
– Membership (2 categories)
– Between
• Core, Affiliate
disciplines
• Project
– Between
– Completion Status
membership
• (3 categories)
groups
– Online Status (Y/N)
Results – Projects
Firms
Projects
Projects Online
Reporting
Reported
Total
Yes
No
11
Other (Award)
10
6
16
25
Not Completed
3
82
85
19
Completed
10
21
31
Total
23
109
132
Percent
17.42% 82.58%
• 132 projects : 42 member firms
– 31 completed : 19 firms
• 10 online : 7 firms
Percent
12.1%
64.4%
23.5%
Results - Projects Online (All)
Completed
10
21
Not Completed 3
Other (Award)
82
10
0
6
20
Online
40
Not Completed
60
Other
80
Completed
100
Results – Projects Online
by Membership Type
Core (Architecture)
8
5
10
10
0
32
9
0
2
11
3
Affiliate (Others)
50
11
20
30
40
0
10
Architecture
Landscape Architecture
Construction
Specifications
Environmental Graphics
Engineering
20
30
40
50
60
Infographic 1.0
Architecture
Landscape Architecture
Construction
Specifications
Environmental Graphics
Engineering
Infographic 1.0
Architecture
Landscape Architecture
Construction
Specifications
Environmental Graphics
Engineering
Results - Projects Online
CORE MEMBERS
Completed
Not Completed
AFFILIATE MEMBERS
Other
Online
Signal Quality – An
Abstraction
• Loosely based on proportion and count of
Not Completed projects to all other
statuses
• Abstraction to Suggest (Incentive) a path
to improvement
• Introducing Signal Quality
–
–
–
–
Static
Low Signal
Medium Signal
Clear
Signal Quality by Group
Marketing Performance
Y: Companies in Group
20
16
Medium
Signal
Static
12
1/67
14/35
Clear
7/26
8
Low
Signal
4
1/5
0
0%
10%
20%
30%
% of Total Projects Posted Online
40%
50%
Signal Quality by Company
STATIC
MEDIUM
SIGNAL
LOW SIGNAL
CLEAR SIGNAL
Marketing Performance
Y: Companies in Group
20
16
Medium
Signal
Static
12
1/67
14/35
Clear
7/26
8
Low
Signal
4
1/5
0
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
% of Total Projects Posted Online
STATIC
MEDIUM SIGNAL
CLEAR SIGNAL
Signal Quality by Company
STATIC
STATIC
LOW SIGNAL
MEDIUM
SIGNAL
MEDIUM SIGNAL
CLEAR SIGNAL
CLEAR SIGNAL
Issues Encountered
• Majority Bad Obscures
Minority Good
• Sizing hurt readability
• Very small, very large
numbers; all significant
• No branding
• Display conditions not
known or chosen
• Lengthy descriptions of
categories, groupings, etc.
Redesign Resolved
• Sizing and Siting
• Focused attention on
– Reporting
Disproportionality
– Differences in Quality
(Agility)
• Revealed two
approaches to
reporting/strategies
Infographic 2.0
What Did The Infographic
Achieve?
• V1.0 -- Small Practice Owners (Architects)?
– Healthy discussion, lively debate
– “So What”
– Lowering barrier didn’t change participation
• V2.0 -- Chapter Letter Publisher (BSA)
– Quantified their expectations about participation
– Contract to bring this function from print to digital
part of content strategy for website
– Post implementation, print publication ceased
What Did The Infographic
Achieve?
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
Huh?
A-ha!
Architects
So What?!
BSA
Wow!
Interlude #2: Story
• With a partner, in 60 seconds:
• With the problem you defined;
– What is the story you need to tell?
– What will your audience be hooked by?
– What is their disposition toward you?
– What should they take away?
– How will they take action?
Case 2:
Show Improvements Made On A
Clinical Research Study
How a 3-chair dental
research clinic saw
3X its typical study
population in
a few weeks
Use an Infographic To
•
•
•
•
Balance Out (or Reduce) a long text
Link improved outcomes to process changes
Show the severity of the challenge overcome
Quantify Project Manager’s value-add to a nonindustry audience/reviewer
• How a 3-chair dental
research clinic saw
3X its typical study
population in
a few weeks
Abstracting The Data
Appointments by Week
50
40
30
180
160
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
20
10
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
Weeks 1-3
7
8
9
Weeks 4-6
10
Weeks 7-9
Clinic Capacity Available
Schedule Capacity
Clinic Capacity Utilized
Completed
Optimizing Patient Flow To
Triple Study Team
Performance
180
160
140
120
100
80
To conduct more
subject visits per day,
we used clinic chairs
for sample collection
only, and led
subjects through a
series of stations
where study
paperwork was
completed
An alarming no-show rate put us behind our
weekly completed appointment quota several
weeks in a row. With capacity increased, we
successfully overbooked the schedule to
increase throughput
These steps boosted our
utilization from 47% to 78%.
More subjects completed the
protocol in the last three
weeks than in the first six.
60
40
20
0
Weeks 1-3
Weeks 4-6
Clinic Capacity Available
Clinic Capacity Utilized
Schedule Capacity
Completed
Weeks 7-9
Issues Encountered
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Data contained too many anomalies
Readability of text in siting
Limitations of Tools
Space constraints limited scope of infographic to only a
portion of the entire case
Missing data, disparate data; could not connect data together
to present a case in numbers
Numerals vs. object counts?
How to show proportions, percent growth, percent difference
Showing/highlighting statistics (KPIs) that were both dramatic
and universal
Portability and useful in multiple places
Revision: Success In 6 Lines!
Appt. Length
Target Capacity
Target Population
~90 minutes
45 Appts/Wk
300 Subjects
175%
Chair Session Length
(% of Appt Length)
Booked Capacity
(% of Target Capacity
150%
125%
100%
Utilization
(% of Actual Capacity)
Chair Usage
(% of Appt Length)
75%
50%
Actual Capacity
(% of Target Capacity)
25%
Subjects Acquired
(% of Target Population)
0%
1-3
4-6
Weeks
7-9
Redesign Resolved
• Focus - Improving Clinic Operations
• Showing Clearly Improving/Increasing
Numbers
• Focus reduced extraneous details from text
narrative
• Focuses, structures, and guides attention
• Extensible
• Issue: Sizing and siting affect readability
Interlude #3: Design
• With a partner, in 60 seconds:
• With the problem you defined;
– Where will your audience view it?
• List all known parameters
– What will your audience be hooked by?
– What is the most significant statistic, comparison,
or relationship – and why?
– Are there graphical languages or visual
metaphors your audience will understand?
– What are your data, story, design resources?
Sizing and Siting:
The Two Banana Peels Of Infographic Design
Use Infographics For…
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Hero Image on Blog
Thumbnail Image
Social Share (Meme)
Internal Presentation
Branded Reference Guide
Top Sheet/Cover Page
Lead Magnet
Process Map
Branded
Reference
Guide
Internal
Presentation
Shareable
(Meme)
Shareable
(Meme)
Process Guide
/ Lead Magnet
Process Guide
/ Lead Magnet
Directional Arrows For Clarity
Gray triangles = email addresses
Too literal design;
Obscures relevant details
to the message
Pulley armature
Is not a flow path
Start
When To Use An Infographic?
DO If:
DON’T If:
• You’re challenging conventional
wisdom or “If-Then” logic
• The data is behaving unexpectedly
• You want to compare disparate data
sets side-by-side
• You want to establish that a pattern
or relationship exists – or doesn’t
• You want to show change or its lack
• Traditional presentations don’t
scale, require too much space, or
don’t translate well to general
audiences
• You want to show everything
• You don’t know what you’re trying
to say with the infographic
• A simple or short presentation is
already possible
• Data you’re trying to chart is close
to each other (same table, database,
etc.)
• You’re illustrating familiar or
obvious information
• You don’t know the display
constraints
• Your tools aren’t up to the task
• You can say it in under 300 words
Resources
• “Do You Really NEED An Infographic?”
– Full Report
• “From ‘So What!’ To ‘Wow!’”
– Article and Case Study
• Checklist of Do’s and Don’ts
– Available by email:
[email protected]
• The Infographic Marketing Plan
– Coming Soon!
Thank You!
Mike Sweeney, CPSM
[email protected]
LinkedIn
In/michaelpsweeney
Twitter
@michaelpsweeney
www.DesignProductSystems.com