How Has Internet Changed Education?

How has internet changed education infographic from SEO.com explores what kind of impact the Internet has on education. Ever had a question and found yourself on wikipedia? Apparently your not the only one!

If you want evidence of the way the internet is pervading every aspect of our lives, you need look no further than its effect on education. The internet and social media have dramatically changed both teaching and learning.

In fact, most students’ (an incredible 93 percent) first instinct when confronted with a research problem is to turn to Google or Bing to get information rather than going to the library, and despite the best efforts of faculty to discourage its use, Wikipedia is the research resource that is used most often. It’s not only students that are turning to the web, however. A whopping 90 percent of faculty uses social media in the courses they’re teaching, and 8 in 10 have used online video in class. In addition, colleges and universities are reaching out to students in a way they never could before—85 percent of admissions offices use some sort of social media, from video blogging to social networking.

Great clean design.  Easy to read and the visualizations are easy to understand.  The only visual I had an issue with was the grid of icon people.  It’s hard for readers to grasp quantity when the rows aren’t 10 people across, but 33 people across is a very odd number.  33x17=561, 561x10,000=5,610,000, which is less than the “Over 6 million” number on the text.

I’m not sure why the 8 out of 10 faculty data point is shown as 6 out of 8 people in the visualization???

The sources are all listed on the original landing page, but because they are in the infographic design, they are lost whenever someone shares the infographic on another site (like this one), and that hurts the credibility of the design.  That’s one more reason the original landing page URL should be included in the design as well.

Found on WiredAcademic

Following The White Rabbit

Who is the mastermind behind your favorite android application? Do you wonder what kind of music they like? The Following the White Rabbit infographic from Startapp.com gives us the low down on what kinds of people are behind Android applications based on a survey they did in March 2012.

Have you ever wondered what kind of people make Android applications? Well wonder no more! We at StartApp decided to investigate this in depth by creating a special Android developer survey which we sent out to all of our Android developers who kindly participated in the survey! Therefore, we are now very proud to present our first infographic that explores everything from the companies Android developers work for to the music they listen to and everything in between. Let us know what you think!

This is a cool infographic that does a good job with the visualizations.  With survey data, it’s a challenge to visualize the results correctly.  Some survey answers add up to 100%, but some questions are asked where the respondent can “check all that apply” so these answers are separate.  The pie charts in the coffee cups, the doughnut charts  and the stacked bar are examples of survey questions that add up to 100% (except the stacked bar adds up to 101% due to rounding, so they should have displayed the tens decimal place).

“What App Markets do you use?” and “What OS’s Do You Develop Apps for?” are some of the multiple answer questions, so the answers are displayed as separate bars or doughnut charts with the appropriate logos.  A couple results are displayed with the wrong type of graphic.  “How Many Apps Have You Published so far?” and “What Would Be Your Preferred Pastime” should both be shown adding up to 100%.

The overall design is a bit crowded with a lot of visual noise, but the statistics are easy to understand.  The coffee-brown color and the overlapping visualizations give the visual impression of working late nights and juggling many details, just like an app coder does.

At the bottom, there should be a copyright statement and the URL to find the original infographic landing page.

Found on Infographic Journal

Just How BIG Is Apple?

Watch out New York! There’s a new Big Apple in town! The Just How BIG Is Apple? infographic from bestcomputersciencedegrees.com illustrates how important Apple really is to us.  Pardon me while I check a text on my iphone and post this with my Mac…

It is the first company to successfully pivot from computer maker to device maker. And its devices are now ubiquitous, its annual new product releases are among the most anticipated in the world and it recently announced it would begin issuing a dividend to its stock owners expected to generate $10 billion in the first year alone. There is also speculation that Apple will enter into the payments market in the near future (allowing its handheld products to serve in the same fashion as a credit card). This alone would turn them into a trillion dollar company.

Love this clean, easy-to-read design.  I understand the sized red bars surrounding the world map, but the GDP values are so close to each other that this visualization makes it very hard to compare between countries.  A rose diagram behind the world map might have worked much better.

I love the use of the company logos to make the bar chart more visual.  The work “billion” could have been removed from each of the values, and made into the chart scale.  There’s one bar between Google and P&G that is missing it’s company logo.  The bar chart makes this very easy for the reader to compare values between the companies, and it should identify the date these market capitalizations were gathered since these values change every day.  It also needs a copyright statement, and the URL of the origianl infographic post so readers can get back to the original high-resolution infographic. 

Found on Infographic Journal

Mapping Popular Story Plot Lines

Finally! The secret ingredient to writing a good book has been revealed. Plot Lines, the infographic from Delayed Gratification, the slow journalism magazine, shows the dominant themes in last year’s books nominated for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction.  An interactive, zooming viewer available on the original landing page.

What makes a prize-winning novel?  As Julian Barnes wins the Booker Prize, Johanna Kamradt charts the themes of this year’s longlisters.  (Illustration by Christian Tate)

If you want to write a hit novel, it pays to stick with the tried-and-true plot lines.  DEATH of your characters is clearly the overall winning theme, with every one of the novels listed from 2011 including death as a theme.  Other classics like WAR, LOVE, BETRAYAL and CORRUPTION followed closely.  Obscure plot points like AN ESCAPED TIGER and HOMICIDAL COWBOY BROTHERS are certainly much more of a risk.

I love this design, and how it takes the multiple, complex story plots from the complicated mix on the left, and converts the chaos into order on the right.  Even with all of the crossover lines, you can still pretty easily follow a line across the diagram.  It’s fun and engaging for readers to follow the connections, and draws the readers in to look more closely. 

Found on visualnews.com

The Eagle Scout Infographic

The Eagle Scout infographic is a new design from the Boy Scouts of America, and shows them experimenting with using infographics to share their message.  It’s odd that I can’t find any mention of it on Scouting.org, but found it posted on the Bryan On Scouting blog, which is the official blog from Scouting Magazine, and posted in the official BSA Twitter stream (@boyscouts).  There’s also a high-resolution PDF file available for download if anyone wants to print it out.

My son just bridged over to Boy Scouts from Cub Scouts, and their national office is here in the DFW area, so I was naturally interested.  This is a really good first attempt at an infographic design from their design team, but makes a few mistakes visualizing the data.

• Good use of the red, white and blue color scheme.  It’s clearly scouting, and specifically related to Eagle Scouts
• The data being presented is fantastic since only the BSA would have access to many of these statistics.
• I love the choices of imagery used.  The embroidered patches and icons used for the scouts keeps the design clean and easy to read.  Many BSA publications use a lot of full-color photos of the scouts, and that would have added too much visual noise to an infographic design.
• The BSA logo at the top clearly identifies this as an official publication, but it’s missing a title.  What should we call this infographic?  Why should I read this infographic?  Something like “100 Years of Eagle Scouts: By The Numbers” would have worked nicely.
• The information included will change over time since the data is a current snapshot of the state of Eagle Scouts.  2,151,024 Eagle Scouts as of what date?  The infographic should more clearly identify the date that the data is gathered from, because people will be looking at this for years on the Internet.
• Filling unusual shapes to show percentages is always a challenge.  With images like the hand icon and the globe you can’t just calculate the height of the colored area like a bar chart.  You have to calculate the AREA of the space to be colored, or you end up with false visualizations like these.
• The same is true for sizing shapes, like the people icons for the Average Age of Eagle Scouts visualization.  You have to size the overall AREA of the shapes to match the data being presented, which is hard with complex shapes.  You can’t just change the height.
• The space shuttle avoids this issue by only coloring a rectangular shape in the middle, turning it into a stacked bar chart, but the visualization doesn’t match the data.  The red colored section is visualizing more than 60 astronauts as Eagle Scouts, when the number shown is only 40.
• I love the Eagles by Decade data, but avoid 3D charts.  The 3D effect doesn’t add anything to the data being presented and it’s incosistent with the rest of the design.  The data tells a great story, and clearly shows that Boy Scouts continues to grow strongly and is a viable organization in the 21st century.
• I like this use of the word cloud for Notable Eagles, but don’t change the font sizes because in infographic design this is assumed to convey data.  With Brave and Loyal in larger fonts, it implies that these are more important than all of the other virtues.  The virtues should all be one, consistent font size, and the names should all be a second font size.
• At the bottom, there should be a copyright (or Creative Commons) statement, and a URL for readers to be able to find the original high-resolution version. 

Thanks to Dean for sending in the link!

Gov 2.0 Infographic: Bringing the Tobacco Control Act to Life

In 2011, Enspektos, a health marketing communications innovation consultancy, invited InfoNewt (my company) to be involved in a special project the firm was leading on behalf of the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Center for Tobacco Products (CTP).  As a new federal agency, the CTP is tasked with regulating tobacco products and preventing tobacco use – especially among youth.

During the project, we collaborated with the CTP to help create The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act: Facts, History and Milestones, an infographic timeline that covers the past and future actions related to the Tobacco Control Act passed in 2009.

The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (Tobacco Control Act) is an important piece of legislation with many requirements. This infographic illustrates the history, rationale and major events associated with the Act. The Tobacco Control Act provides all of the events, deadlines and requirements in full and should be used as the final resource for information about the Act.

The infographic is yet another example of Gov 2.0, or the effort to utilize a range of digital technologies to improve government transparency and public understanding of how federal agencies function.  The original Tobacco Control Act is a 68-page document available online, but in actual practice that isn’t easily accessible or understandable by the general public.  The FDA has created several tools to help the public understand the Tobacco Control Act, like a snapshot overview of the Act, an interactive scrolling timeline viewer, a searchable interface and the infographic timeline.

On Wednesday, April 25^th, the FDA is holding a LIVE webinar to share the different tools they have created to help everyone access and understand specific information from the 68-page law. 

Attend Our Live Webinar!

• Wednesday, April 25, 2012, 1 – 2 p.m. EST.
• Visit https://collaboration.fda.gov/tobaccocontrolact to login to the webinar. (turn up your speakers for audio).
• For audio, dial 1-888-989-6520; passcode: 2397828.

As you might expect from an official government publication, the design went through many iterations of review and revisions.  In my opinion, the final infographic is text-heavy, but strikes a balance between optimal design and content that was vetted and approved by many different individuals at the CTP. 

Fard Johnmar, Founder and President of Enspektos agreed to answer some questions about the project.

Cool Infographics: How do you think the infographic and other tools will aid public understanding of the Tobacco Control Act and the CTP? 

Fard Johnmar:  I think the infographic and other tools are an important step for the federal government.  Transforming dense and complicated legislation into simple, visually appealing information products is a very difficult process.  You have to balance the wish to make things clear and concise with a requirement that information be as accurate and complete as possible.  

We had two primary goals: The first was to improve the public’s understanding of the Tobacco Control Act.  The second was to get people within FDA comfortable with using new tools that help visually communicate important regulatory and public health information.  Now that this project is complete, I think FDA will be looking for other ways to communicate about its mission and activities in more visually appealing ways.

Cool Infographics: Do you see other health and medical organizations using visual communications techniques? 

Fard Johnmar: Absolutely.  In fact, since we published the Empowered E-Patient infographic a few years ago, I’ve seen a number of health organizations using infographics to communicate about a range of topics, including GE for its Healthymagination project (click here for a few sample infographics).

Cool Infographics:  How difficult was it to push the infographic through the FDA approval process

Fard Johnmar: As you can imagine, getting final approval for a novel visual project like this can be difficult for large organizations.  However, there was a real passion for the project from Sanjay Koyani, Senior Communications Advisor at the CTP and other members of his team.  They helped to successfully meet all of the legal requirements and answer the numerous questions posed by colleagues at the CTP.  Now there is a higher comfort level at the agency with utilizing these types of visual tools to tell the CTP story.

I truly appreciated being involved in the project, and think this is a really big step towards making the often overly complex information released through official government channels more understandable to more people.

Thanks to Enspektos and the team at the Center for Tobacco Products!

The Rise of the Slacktivist

Ever had this feeling that you were a Slacktivist? Well wonder no more! The Rise of the Slacktivist infographic from sortable.com will put a rest to all your questions!

Is there any value in a Slacktivist? Can 500,000 people on twitter actually change something? Is hitting the streets and protesting the only real way to cause social change? Sortable takes a look at the rise of slacktivism, and the power this movement has.

This design does a good job of telling a story to the reader that is easy to understand in a linear fashion top-to-bottom.  It starts with the background of “What is a Slacktivist,” then shares a number of behavioral stats about Slacktivists, a few successful Slacktavist campaigns and finally the “10 Signs you might be a Slacktivist” is a self-check for the readers.

The illustrations are mostly relevant, and the overall design isn’t too crowded with information.  I don’t understand some of uses of the social media icons, like why is Twitter representative of volunteering and Facebook representative of taking part in events?  They missed the opportunity to visualize some of their data point too, like the Red Cross stats related to the Haiti earthquake.  Even at least an illustration of five days on a calendar would help.

Even though there are a lot of Sources, they were thorough and correctly included them in the infographic design.  They are also listed on the landing page, but none of that text gets carried along when someone reposts the infographic.

The bottom of the design is missing a copyright statement, and it would be nice to give the designer credit.  Readers are generally more receptive to a design when the designer is mentioned because it comes from somebody and not just a corporation.

Thanks to Brenden for sending in the link!

Where the Startup Jobs are

Where the Startup Jobs are infographic from StartUphire.com aims to help raise awareness of the lack of qualified people filling technical positions in startups.

StartUpHire, with support from the National Venture Capital Association, is releasing a new infographic today depicting 2011 hiring data for startups.  What’s the biggest take away? While most of the country is still sluggish on job creation, startups face the opposite problem- a glut of open technical jobs.

36 percent of all open jobs at startups last year were engineering or technical jobs. However, those two sectors saw only 15 percent of the overall applicant pool trying to fill those positions.  This supports evidence of an ever-tightening market for specific skills out there, and the need to keep developing and attracting qualified talent to young startup companies remains critical.

I think if the country wants to know who holds the best hope for meaningful economic growth, we need look no further than our own home grown, innovative, and passionate startup ecosystem.

This is an interesting story to tell, and an infographic is a great way to do it.  In a down economy with higher unemployment, there are certain job sectors that still aren’t getting enough qualified candidates!

Obviously, everyone assumes there are startup jobs in California (in Silicon Valley), but the map clearly shows startup positions that have been filled across the country.  Visually, the size of the state callout boxes and text seems to imply how big the numbers or for each state; however, that’s not the case and it’s misleading the reader.  Massachusetts had a higher number of job posts than Texas, but the callout text is much smaller.

The circle sizes in Job Posts by Industry appear accurate, which is where many designs make mistakes.  I also like the Areas of Expertise chart, and how the positions are arranged along the X-axis in order of the disparity between open positions and the number of applicants.  That conveys an additional level of information to the reader.

I was disappointed to see the last couple of statistics in the design didn’t get the data visualization treatment.  Show a visualization of 27% and give the 502 number some visual context to show how big that number actually is.  The URL for the original infographic is included at the bottom, but there should also be a copyright statement in the design.

Thanks to Robin for sending in the link!

Lakes & Oceans: A Deep Infographic

Another great infographic from Randall Munroe’s xkcd online comic.  Lakes & Oceans visualizes the various depths of the worlds water, and even includes…a mysterious door that James Cameron built his deep-sea submersible to reach at the bottom of the Marianas Trench and open?

Found on FlowingData.com

IT Infirmity: What's Ailing Your IT Department on 2012?

Is your IT department feeling a little under the weather? Send it to the IT Infirmity! The What’s Ailing Your IT Department infographic from ViaWest is their first infographic!

What do CIOs rank as their biggest IT aches and pains? What are the average salaries of employees within IT departments? What is the impact of ITtention Deficit - the inability to focus on your core business?  Find out in this infographic from ViaWest.

I really like this design, but the data visualizations need help.  It’s obviously a promotional piece for ViaWest, but there’s nothing wrong with using an infographic that way.  They have also made a high-resolution PDF available.

The story reads very easily from top-to-bottom with clearly separated sections. The icons for each sections are also amusing and keep the overall tone light-hearted.

The only issues I have with the design are the data visualizations. 

• Don’t put 51% on top of a bunch of people icons, and not highlight 51% of the icons to go along with the numerical value. 
• The two bars showing the data created before and after 2009 are actually two parts of the whole 100%, so this should be shown as a stacked bar.  Why is this shown as two separate bars?
• Both of the office tower icon visuals in ITrauma would be easier to understand if they were a single row of building icons.  The 93% is hard to understand visually since you can’t visually tell that 13% of the last building is shaded.  In fact, it doesn’t look to me like the last building is shaded properly.
• At the bottom, there should be a copyright statement
• The design should also include the URL to find the original, high-resolution image on the ViaWest site so when people see this infographic shared on other sites, they can find the original.

Thanks to Todd for sending in the link!