The complaints procedure in the terms and conditions takes up a page and a half. The same procedure drawn as five steps with arrows fits on one slide, or on a card by the till. A customer who can see which stage they’re at and what comes next is less likely to phone and ask.
Types
- Data. Figures and charts, for example the results in an annual report.
- Process. The steps of an order, an installation or a complaint.
- Comparison. Two products, two options, or before and after.
- Timeline. A company’s history or a rollout schedule.
- Map. Coverage, branches, directions.
- Structure. A group of companies or how a product is built.
Infographic or chart
A chart shows numbers. An infographic says what follows from them. It picks the data that matters, adds context and puts the conclusion in the title. Instead of “Sales by quarter”, it says: “Exports are growing faster than domestic sales”.
What to watch for
- One graphic, one idea. When an infographic tries to say five things at once, it turns into a poster that needs studying.
- An honest scale. Bars on an axis that doesn’t start at zero can turn a difference of a few per cent into a chasm. The same goes for circles: when the value sets the diameter rather than the area, differences look bigger than they are.
- Consistency with the brand. Colours from the brand palette, icons from its iconography, the same typefaces as the rest of the materials. Then an infographic from the report also works in a presentation and on the website.
- Phones and accessibility. A long infographic dropped onto a page as a single image is often unreadable on a phone, and a screen reader can’t read the text inside it. On a website it’s better built from text and graphics, in line with the principles of digital accessibility.