The Anatomy of a Vegan

The Anatomy of a Vegan infographic from AdvancedPhysicalMedicine.org takes an “in depth” look at some of the demographic data they gathered in a survey of Vegans.

In spite of its long history, veganism is still considered unusual by many in this carnivore nation of ours.  But did you know there are 3 million+ vegans in the U.S.?  Yep, veganism has officially arrived.  So here are some facts about those who follow this lifestyle.

Designed by InfoMonkeys, I love the X-Ray design style.  They do a great job of showing context of the data being represented.  Hands with a wedding ring, the house, the shopping cart, the cityscape and the meat grinder is especially humorous.

Eye-popping colors and an X-ray theme give a whole new meaning to taking an “inside look” at veganism. Packed with information, this infographic strikes a great balance between education and entertainment. Based upon a Facebook survey with text provided by the client, this is one of our favorite pieces!

- InfoMonkeys

The black background stands out boldly in blog formats, and the infographic includes all the important information (clear title, data source, copyright, website URL and even lists the designer).  It should have listed the URL of the infographic on the Advanced Physical Medicine site instead of the homepage.  I like the idea of the “Importantometer”, but I just noticed the size of the arrows in the visualization doesn’t match the data.  The 17% arrow shouldn’t be larger than the 38% arrow, etc.

I have a few things I would suggest changing about the design:

• I say it often here on the blog.  Big fonts do not make good data visualizations.  Too many of the statistics are listed as big numbers without any visualization, and it would have been simple to visualize these statistics.
• The percentage sign under the value numbers on the bar charts are hard to read and disconcerting.  Shrink the numbers and lets the visualization tell the story.  The actual numbers themselves are secondary.
• The Annual Household Income is shown as a bar chart, but those percentages are all part of the complete 100%.  They should be shown as parts of the whole like a pie chart or a stacked bar chart.  Same with the shopping statistics.
• I have a really hard time reading the script font they used in the quoted responses at the bottom.

One final thought is that readers should always be skeptical of the data sources.  144 respondents from a Facebook survey is not enough to be a statistically valid study that would indicative of the entire population.  The reader also doesn’t know how the respondents were screened as part of the survey.  By visualizing the data in an infographic, it implies a certain level validity that isn’t truly there.

Thanks to David for sending in the link!

Comments

[JC]

Interesting stuff, but limited in scope. Here are two uplifting videos to help everyone understand why so many people are making this life-altering choice: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKr4HZ7ukSE and http://www.veganvideo.org

[Steven]

What I miss the most in this infographic, and have missed in others of its nature, is data to compare it to.

While interesting bits of data on their own, when people hear something about vegans - as this post even points out - there will be all sorts of assumptions. Citing the data really doesn't do anything for most of those assumptions because most don't have a comparative data. If the infographic included data on vegetarians (pecetatians, pollotarians etc. may be a bit of a stretch in distinction and would certainly clutter the infographic) and people who do consume animal products, the infographic would have been more meaningful.

[Edward]

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[Veganlife]

According to biologists and anthropologists who study our anatomy and our evolutionary history, humans are herbivores who are not well suited to eating meat.

Unlike natural carnivores, we are physically and psychologically unable to rip animals limb from limb and eat and digest their raw flesh. Even cooked meat is likely to cause human beings, but not natural carnivores, to suffer from food poisoning, heart disease, and other ailments.

[Andrew Warn]

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[Mike W | free online fundraising website]

very useful your information, I always have to consider the cost.... life to vengans!! .... Good job with the design!!!

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