White House Infographic: Extending Middle Class Tax Cuts

Here is a new infographic from the White House illustrating why Obama’s plan to Extend Middle Class Tax Cuts is the right thing to do. The infographic points out the pro’s for why it should be passed and what will happen if it isn’t passed.  I’m certainly not pushing a political bias, but I thought it would helpful to take a close look at some issues with the design.

From the White House:

Unless the the House of Representatives takes action before January 1, 2013, a typical middle-class family of four will see their taxes go up by $2,200 in the coming year.

President Obama is fighting to prevent that from happening. He is pushing lawmakers to get this done.

What we should do right now is give middle-class families and small business owners a guarantee that their taxes will not go up next year,” he said. “When families have the security of knowing that their taxes won’t go up they’re more likely to spend, and more likely to grow the economy. When small business owners have certainty on taxes and can plan ahead they’re more likely to hire and create new jobs. And that benefits all of us.” – President Obama

A few thoughts:

• I like the progress bar design to visually show the current status of the issue.
• Overall, the text is very small.  Even  when viewing the full-size resolution version on the landing page, some of the text is hard to read.
• Sources are only listed for one statistic the Reducing the Federal Deficit section.  Where does the rest of the data come from, and why should we believe it?
• Visualizing the stats in the first section would have been very helpful to put the numbers into context.  They should show the reader that 114 Million Middle-Class Families is a certain percentage of the total number of families in the U.S.
• Nice use of red color to show the opposing proposal.  From a design standpoint, red = bad/negative so this visually shows the opposing plan with a subconscious negative bias.
• The visualization of 100 people icons is correct, but would be easier for the reader to understand if it was organized in rows of 10.  Our number system is Base-10, so that’s how readers understand data.
• Again, the rows of 15 small office buildings are hard for the reader to understand.  They should be rows of 10 to be immediately understandable.
• The U.S. map should be display the values as a heat map.  States with higher values would have full color, and states with lower values would have lighter shades of the same color in accordance to the values.  Don’t make the reader read all of the text values and hunt to figure out the higher and lower values.  You don’t want to make your readers work that hard, when you can visualize it easily for them.
• The “Learn more…” statement at the end is a good call-to-action at the end of the infographic, but they should also include the URL of the infographic landing page so people can find the original.

The White House has been experimenting with infographics for about a year now.  You can see my thoughts about two previous examples of The Obama Energy Agenda and The Resurgence of the American Automobile.

What do you think about the design?  What do you like, or would have done differently?

Found on the White House webpage

2011 Wisconsin Crash Calendar & Interview

I love this infographic design!  Designed by Joni Graves, a Program Director at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Engineering Professional Development (that’s a mouthful!).  I highly recommend downloading the PDF version and taking a closer look on your own.

The original version and a few variations are available on a couple different official sites:

• Governors Highway Safety Association http://www.ghsa.org/html/resources/showcase/wi1.html
• Wisconsin Safety Data Resource Portal http://wisconsinsafetydataportal.org/index.cfm/wi-crash-calendar/

The Wisconsin Bureau of Transportation Safety (BOTS) uses printed copies of the infographic calendar at meetings around the state with various groups to generate discussions about what causes crashes and how to interpret what the data shows.

This design is a great example of how visualizing the data allows the readers to see patterns in the data and much more easily understand the stories behind the data.  The color coding makes it easy to compare the data subsets, and the consistent layout to match a traditional paper calendar is very easy to follow.

There are so many findings you can quickly see in the big dataset.  Some are obvious, but many are surprising.  For example, you can clearly see…

• Alcohol-related crashes happen primarily on weekends, and fairly consistently throughout the year.
• Deer Season is clearly identified in Oct-Nov.
• There was something special about July 1st…
• Motorcycle, Work Zone and Bicycle crashes occur during the Summer months.
• Ice, Snow, Wet Road crashes are highest in Jan-Feb, but what happened on April19th?  Late Winter storm?
• Speed related crashes are primarily reported in the Winter months.
• Fatal crashes are evenly spread throughout the year

Joni was also willing to answer some interview questions about this project and her design process:

Cool Infographics: What software applications did you use to create the Crash Calendar?

Joni Graves: EXCEL 2010 using Pivot Tables. Presentation advancements incorporate Microsoft’s PowerPivot using SharePoint.

Cool Infographics: Was the design created in cooperation with the Wisconsin Transportation Information Center, or was it an independent project? 

Joni Graves: I’m a Program Director at the UW-Madison Department of Engineering Professional Development and part of the WI LTAP (FHWA’s Local Transportation Assistance Program) / Wisconsin Transportation Information Center (TIC).

Cool Infographics: How long did the design take you to create?

Joni Graves: It’s a longer story, if you’re interested, but the skinny is that I started working on the Crash Calendar format in mid-April and previewed it at a meeting the end of the month. I had a learning curve with some of the intricacies, and spent about 200 hours on it during that two weeks! Since then it’s taken on a life of its own — and I am delighted by that!

Cool Infographics: Would you describe your design process?

Joni Graves: I would be happy to elaborate on this but, as an inveterate designer / tinkerer, I’ll confess that I’m always discovering some new way of formatting / displaying the data, and disappointed that there’s never enough time to do the new ideas justice …

Cool Infographics: What’s the most interesting thing you learned from the data?

Joni Graves: I’ve certainly enjoyed the design process! More importantly, it’s been incredibly satisfying to see people engage w/ the data using this intuitive representation, or to read their comments, because it’s apparent that it helps make the data far more accessible! And I have loved the comments / responses.

Cool Infographics: What was the hardest part behind designing the Crash Calendar?

Joni Graves: As I noted, there’s been a fascinating learning curve. But the hardest part has been stopping! As noted above, I’m always trying to “improve” it — and always running out of time.

Cool Infographics: What should we expect from future versions of the design?

Joni Graves: We currently have a multi-year version, a web-demo site, and a working 2012 version. I’m very excited about incorporating choropleth maps. Although it’s a very interesting “historic” document, the real goal is to provide a resource that is far more timely and potentially predictive for local users. 

I’m really excited about our plans to webize it, because the real idea is to expand it as a national project — using multi-year FARS data, WI data, and data from other interested states — and we really want to “unleash” it for others to actively use. 

Cool Infographics: Challenges?

Joni Graves: There’s been a wonderful response — and we are trying to figure out how to actually fund an expanded project w/ enhancements!

One additional thing to note was that Joni was inspired to create the whole design project by Nathan Yau’s post on Vehicles involved in fatal crashes in 2010 (which I posted about here earlier this year), and I think she has done a great job building Nathan’s initial visualization into some something much more powerful and effective.

Thanks to Joni for sharing!

American Sugar Consumption

OnlineNursingPrograms.com visually shows the readers that they are eating WAY too much sugar with the American Sugar Consumption infographic. It is an eye opener to see how much more we are consuming than the recommended amount and that it can be harmful for us.  It is even going to be difficult to cut back, because sugar is as addictive as cocaine!

 The consumption of sugar will always be an issue for nutritionists and health buffs everywhere. As long as sugar remains a large part of the American diet, we will continue to hear about all the negative effects sugar can have on the body. As someone who is studying nursing, it’ll be important to understand how the overconsumption of sugar may cause many health problems in the future. Many may ask: Is this concern exaggerated? Absolutely not. Sugar is in everything and it has contributed to the growing obesity epidemic in the United States. Since 1990, sugar intake has increased by 40 lbs a year. Is it a coincidence that the obesity rate has increased by 20 percent? As a nurse, you will see many cases in which a reduction of sugar intake could have gone a long way to ensuring less visits to the hospital. It’ll be important as a nurse to educate your patients on why sugar is bad and why they should limit their consumption of sugar. This infographic will show you just how getting your daily sugar fix may be contributing to many short term and long term health issues.

This is a great infographic design.  It’s eye-catching, and uses data visualizations to put the statistical values into context for the readers.  I like the simple color scheme, the use of piles of sugar (like the wheelbarrow and the dumpster) and the real world objects used to provide scale (soda cans and gallon jugs).

Only a couple things I would suggest to improve the design:

• The average adult easts 22 teaspoons of sugar per day, but the visualization shows 24
• The average child eats 32 teaspoons of sugar per day, but 33 spoons are shown in the visualization
• The URL link to the original infographic landing page should be in the footnotes

Thanks to Emily for sending in the link!

The Visual History of Swimwear

The History of Swimwear infographic is a visual timeline from Backyard Ocean that shows the evolution of the swimsuit over the last 150 years.

The swimsuit: a symbol of stylish summer fun. Parade it on the beach or in the privacy of your above ground pool at home. Swimwear’s history has grown from cavemen furs to science fiction fancies. Artsy, classy, conservative or sexy, the swimsuit is an icon of summer style and fashion. Backyard Ocean takes a breath from swimming to see just how the swimsuit has changed through time. CLICK on the image to enlarge!

This is a design by Jeremy Yingling with InfoNewt (my company).  Each model on the timeline has an illustration showing off the fashions, and represents either a new suit design or a famous example from TV & movies.  My favorite part is the associated pie chart visualizing the amount of skin coverage for each swimsuit (or lack thereof).

The design also plots the amount of skin coverage over time, the evolution of the “thong” and how skin exposure does not automatically equate to higher sex appeal.

Thanks to the team at Backyard Ocean! 

The Infographic Kitchen Cheat Sheet

They’re not kidding when they say cheat sheet! The infographic Kitchen Cheat Sheet from Everest covers anything from kitchen conversions, to how to store your food, to how to cook different parts of animals! I’d recommend posting this infographic on your fridge!

Whether you are new to cooking or an experienced chef, everyone can use a little help in the kitchen sometimes. That’s why we created a comprehensive kitchen cheat sheet for you to fall back on whenever you are in doubt. We find it useful and we hope you do too!

Love the retro design style!  Although I wish they had visualized more of the data, this comprehensive guide covers almost everything you can find on the inside covers of every cookbook!  

The bottom of the infographic should have included a copyright (or Creative Commons) and the URL to the original infographic landing page for readers to be able to find the high-resolution version.

Everest has also provided three, smaller cheat sheets to easily print and post in your kitchen.  These are PDFs sized to A4 paper for the UK, but print fine on Letter parper in the U.S.

Thanks to Shelli for sending in the link!

The Rising Cost of Higher Education

The Rising Cost of Higher Education from SchoolTutoring Academy does a good job visually showing the reader how quickly the price of college educations have risen.

Attending a college or university represents a significant investment for families. Tuition fees have continued to rise which has made it increasingly difficult for families to accurately budget and save. This problem is exacerbated for low and middle-income families where tuition fees as a percentage of median family income has increased significantly. Learn how affordable tutoring can help your child.

The design gets to the point immediately.  If the reader only looks at the top portion of the infographic (without scrolling down) they still walk away understanding the key message of how dramatically college costs have risen as a percentage of the median family income.  However, I don’t see any indication that the values have been adjusted for inflation or not.

I also like the concentric doughnut graphs that are used with consistent colors to show the same 8-year comparison for different income level families.  The line chart comparison of annual costs is also clear and easy to understand.

The lower portion of the design becomes too text heavy, and begins to show data values in text without visualizing them.  This is where the design will start to lose readers by trying to convey too much text information.  What is the icon in the description of Private Loans?

The bottom of the design is missing a copyright (or Creative Commons) license and should also include the URL to the infographic landing page where readers can find the original, high-resolution version.

ROI = Return On Infographics

Infographics about infographics are always fun.  Return on Infographics by Bit Rebels and NowSourcing takes a look at some of Bit Rebels’ own data from releasing infographics as part of their marketing.

The impact of an infographic can be measured on many levels, which makes it all just a little bit more complex and complicated to present. With the help of NowSourcing, we have been able to produce an infographic that will compare the traffic and social action impact of an infographic post with a traditional post that does not involve an infographic. It’s through social media analytics that a clear image slowly emerges to tell a story that for some has just been a question without an answer.

They’re pretty clear about this, but remember that this design is completely based on internal data from Bit Rebels.  It may be a good indicator of infographics in general, but we don’t know for sure.

Bit Rebels has shared some fantastic data from their internal tracking, which will be of interest to the you, the readers of Cool Infographics.  However, the design makes a few mistakes, and we’re all here to learn how to make infographics designs better.

• One of my pet peeves, the design messed up the size of the circles in the comparison table.  Based on the full-size infographic they released at 975 pixels wide, the smaller circle for 243 Actions is about 55 pixels in diameter.  Doing the match for the area of a circle, the diameter of the larger circle for 1,091 Actions should be about 117 pixels wide.  In the design, it’s actually about 256 pixels wide!  So instead of visually showing a shape roughly 4x larger, it’s actually showing a circle about 22x larger!  This is a “false visualization” and mis-represents the data.
• Are these comparison data points an average or a total of the 500 posts?
• How many infographic posts are compared to how many traditional posts?
• Love the use of the actual logos from the social networks in the comparison table, and they should have continued that with the rest of the design instead of just text later in the design.
• The blue bars behind the higher comparison value look like bar charts, but obviously don’t match the data.  They just fit the text, and have no visual relevance to the data.  An indicator icon or highlighting the entire column width would have been better than the bars.
• Are the Top 6 Social Networks in rank order?  LinkedIN is the top social network for infographics???
• The circles near the end of the design are also incorrect.  Instead of showing a 10x comparison to match the dollar values, the circles show an over 100x comparison!

Found on WebProNews, MediaBitro’s AllTwitter, and Visual.ly.  Thanks to everyone that also submitted it and tweeted links to it!

The Awesome Tower of Beer!

The High Life in a new infographic from RothIRA.com that visualizes the awesome tower of beer you could buy if you were to save just $1 per day starting at age 25.

Getting older has its benefits—how about all the beer you can drink? All it takes is a dollar a day (and a really, really large fridge).

Want to learn more about a Roth IRA?

Designed by InfoNewt (my company), this design follows the strategy of telling one story really well.  There are hundreds of charts online showing the power of compound interest and why people should invest early for retirement.  We took a different approach to put the power of those savings into terms that young adults are more likely to relate to…BEER!

Thanks to the team at RothIRA.com for being great to work with!

Update on Tuesday, August 28, 2012 at 7:44PM by Randy

Awesome!  The Tower of Beer infographic went viral and was picked up on…

Mashable: http://mashable.com/2012/08/21/retirement-planning-beer/

AARP: http://blog.aarp.org/2012/08/21/convince-your-kids-to-save-in-a-language-they-understand-beer/

HolyKaw: http://holykaw.alltop.com/the-high-life-explaining-retirement-savings-w

The Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/21/retirement-planning-expla_n_1817409.html

Betterment: https://www.betterment.com/blog/2012/08/20/have-your-beer-and-drink-it-too/

@GuyKawasaki on Twitter: http://twitter.com/GuyKawasaki/statuses/238656984864411649

The Jane Dough: http://www.thejanedough.com/retirement-planning-infographic/

…and many more!

Which Countries were Successful at the Olympics?

A personal infographic design project by Paulo Estriga, Which Countries were really the Most Successful in London 2012? compares the Top 10 medal winning countries with a normalized set of data showing the number of medals per one million people in the population of each country.

The official standings are reached by counting the number of gold medals obtained by each country, using silver and gold [bronze? - Randy] medals to break ties.  By this method, the USA was the most successful country, followed by China in second and Great Britain in third.

However, most of these countries have many millions of people to pick from, which naturally generates a large number of quality athletes making it to the Olympics.  What happens when we take population numbers into account?  Which are really the most successful countries in getting the most gold medals out of the fewest people?

This design is clear, easy-to-read, and does a great job of showing how normalizing the data with population gives you a very different result.  He clearly cited his sources, included a copyright statement and the URL to his site.  I would have preferred the URL to be directly to the infographic.

Paulo’s structure of the overall infographic is a great example of the 3-part story format!  The introduction visualizes the traditional way of measuring countries based on their gold medal counts, by showing medal icons.  The Main Event is the visualization of the new, normalized for population chart that shows something new and unexpected to the reader.  Finally, a conclusion wraps up the design describing where the traditional Top 10 countries fall in the new ranking.

Outstanding job Paulo!

The Lifespan of Storage Media

Crashplan has just released The Lifespan of Storage Media, a comprehensive guide to how long your data will last.  Designed by Mike Wirth with InfoNewt, this infographic compares the expected lifespans of popular media types used over the last 100 years to save different kinds of information: computer data, photos, videos and audio.  Do your 8-tracks still play?

As each new form of data storage comes on the scene, the market is at first enamored with its compactness, convenience and hoped-for data longevity. But invariably, the reality of physical vulnerability and a limited lifespan remains. Eventually, all media fails, but Cloud backup is forever.

This was a fantastic project to work on, and the data research was the most challenging piece.  We had to find data to support both an average expected life and an extended “with extreme care” life.  We certainly found some contradictory data sources, and ultimately used data we felt was the most commonly accepted in the industry.

Do you have old computer backups burned to CDs, tapes or even hard drives on your shelf?  Don’t count on being able to read the data from them too much longer!  The short lifespan for many of these types of media that people use everyday to archive their personal photos and videos was most surprising.

Thanks to the team at Crashplan for a great project!