Pancreatic Cancer Survival Rates Aren't Improving

The charity, Pancreatic Cancer UK has released this infographic showing some stats that aren’t common knowledge.

We’ve put an infographic together to highlight the main stats about pancreatic cancer that are unknown - you know, less than 3% of people who are diagnosed will live to see five years post-diagnosis? Infographics can be gorgeous and fun but occasionally have a really important message at their heart.

I like the tree maps showing the difference between death rates and funding for the different forms of cancer.

Thanks to Laura for sending in the link!

The Infographic History of Spices

Turn Up the Heat: Worldwide History of Spice from recipe-finder.com brings together a whole bunch of related infomrmation into one infographic.

They say that money makes the world go round. While that might just be true today, centuries ago, spices made the world go round. Spices used to be worth so much that people set about to conquer new territories in search for these flavor enhancers. Today, basic spices may not fetch so much in the market (although saffron will still cost you an arm and two legs), but they are used just as much in kitchens around the world.

The information in here is fantastic, but a few design problems make this a little harder to understand than it should be.  The sized-circles over the map…what do the sizes mean?  From an overall design aspect, it’s missing a clear title, license and URL to the original posting.

I can eat jalapeno peppers in a lot of the food here in Texas, but anything over about 6,000 on the Scoville Scale is out of my league!

Thanks to @franky for sharing this on Twitter.

Client Infographic: Sudan, Bombing Everything That Moves

Sometimes, you get the opportunity to work on a project with a very serious topic and global relevance.  Recently, InfoNewt (my company) worked with Prof. Eric Reeves and designer Mike Wirth to design the infographic Bombing Everything That Moves (hosted on Eric’s site SudanBombing.org). 

For well over a decade the Government of Sudan—the National Islamic Front/National Congress Party (NIF/NCP) regime in Khartoum—has engaged in a sustained campaign of deliberate aerial military attacks on civilian and humanitarian targets in both South and North Sudan. These attacks have been only fitfully condemned by the international community, and no effective action has been taken to halt them.

Obviously, the topic is very political.  Prof. Reeves has published an extensive report and makes his Excel data file available to everyone on his site, so I’ll keep my comments focused on the unique challenges we faced when designing the infographic.

The data for this visualization is much different that the readily available Internet stats we see every day.  There is no database to query or reseach data file to purchase.  The exhaustive work Prof. Reeves has done to manually consolidate these confirmed bombing attack reports from U.N. observers, humanitarian aid personnel, radio reports and news reports is a massive, ongoing effort.

Even though the number of attacks in the report was known, most reports had unknown numbers for casualties and the number of bombs used in the attack.  Because of that, the bar chart-style visualization that is the center of the design only shows the number of attacks (a solid number we could work with) and separately shows the average numbers of bombs and casualties from the reports that had that information available.

Data transparency is always important.  As an infographic, the data sources have to be very transparent becuase you want your audience talking about the implications of your information, not challenging your credibility.

Eric Reeves is Professor of English Language and Literature at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. He has spent the past twelve years working full-time as a Sudan researcher and analyst, publishing extensively both in the US and internationally. He has testified several times before the Congress, has lectured widely in academic settings, and has served as a consultant to a number of human rights and humanitarian organizations operating in Sudan.

Due to the nature of this infographic, please keep any comments on the infographic design itself.  Any inflamatory or political comments will be removed based on my judgement.

How Dangerous Is Your House?

How Dangerous Is Your House? is a new infographic from Ecomom.com, and designed by Column Five Media.  I love the content in this one!  In fact it reminded me to talk with my son about some of these, however, the overall design has WAY too much text.  Most readers will skim or skip over most of the text explanations.  Why aren’t the statisitics visualized?

Thanks to Jarred for sending in the link!

Cycling Injuries Revealed Infographic

From the Christensen Law Firm comes the Cycling Injuries Revealed infographic.

From an infographic design standpoint, there are both things I really like and don’t like about this one. 

• I like that the Most Common Injuries statistics are placed around the rider right near the appropriate area of the body, but I don’t like that the clouds are different sizes with no relation to the percentage values.
• I love the pie charts in the bicycle wheels, but the text is too small to read.
• I like the use of street signs for the surrounding figures, but they have too much text and those statisitics could have been visualized.  The bicycle rider icons in the Stop Sign are a good example of how the rest of the signs should have been designed.
• Even the road and sky color in the background helps to make this infographic stand out on a white background nicely.
• I love that there is a large, center visual that focuses the readers attention on the primary information.

Thanks to Jake for sending me the link!

OUTBREAK: Deadliest Pandemics in History

OUTBREAK: Deadliest Pandemics in History is a cool collaboration between GOOD magazine and Column Five Media.

From the Black Death to the measles, rapidly spreading diseases have taken a toll on humanity for centuries. Here’s a look at the biggest and deadliest pandemics ever.

I like the circles for each disease sized to the death toll, and illustrated to look like a virus molecule.  I can’t tell if the extra design elements around the circumference of the circles are part of the circle size or not.  The readers’ eyes see the area of each circle to represent it’s relative death toll compared to the others, but looking at the Measles circle, which radius do you see as the size of the circle?  The solid black line or the outer reaches of the appendages?  I think arguments could be made both ways.

Although I personally don’t like legends, the hexagons to indicate all of the different symptoms of each disease work nicely.  The shape implies scientific information, and the designer spend some time designing icons for each symptom.

This design works very well as an informative piece, and is clear to the reader to understand.  This one will probably have a long online lifespan.

Found on Visual News.

Client Infographic: Making an Organic Choice

Making an Organic Choice from So Nice is a new infographic by InfoNewt and designer Jeremy Yingling.  This one tells the story in numbers of how organic food processing is better for you and the environment compared to conventional food processing.

We are what we eat, goes the old adage.

So Nice is committed to your health and that of the environment, which is why we use only certified organic, non-genetically modified organism (GMO) whole soybeans grown from environmentally responsible farming operations.  Below, we’ve contrasted only some of the data surrounding conventional and organic farming to help you learn about your food and beverages.

Without being preachy, using an infographic presents the data in a way that their potential customers can easily understand and use to make informed decisions.  They not only posted it online, but So Nice is also using it as a printed, informational poster at trade shows as a conversation piece with visitors to the booth.

You can follow So Nice on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/So-Nice/77766940782

Client Infographic: Facebook, Privacy and Health

For the Path of the Blue Eye Project, InfoNewt (my company) recently designed the infographic: What You Need To Know: Facebook, Privacy and Health.  The group at the Path of the Blue Eye Project has done some fantastic, primary research about online users’ willingness and attitudes about sharing health information online, and specifically Facebook.

The answer is overwhelmingly “NO”.

If Facebook is so popular (Pew reports that 62% of Web users frequent sites like Facebook and MySpace), why are people shying away from sharing health content with others on the site?  To answer this question, the Path of the Blue Eye Project commissioned a national survey designed to tease out some of the reasons why Americans are reluctant to exchange health information on Facebook.  We found:

• 68% of Facebook users have not and would not share their personal health information on the site. The most commonly cited reason for refusing to share: “it’s no one’s business but my own (86%).”
• Privacy concerns may be one reason many refuse to share.  39% of non-sharers were afraid strangers would find their health information and 32% worried marketers might use it to sell products and services.
  

Online users do a lot of searching for health information, but very few are willing to share any of their own information on social sites like Facebook.

The Facebook Privacy Policy is huge, and most of the concerns why oline users are unwilling to share online information have to do with unintended people finding their information.  Insurance companies, marketers and strangers top the list of concerns.

Thanks again to Fard and the team at Enspektos.com.  There’s much more information available at the Path of the Blue Eye Project.

Rhinos by the Numbers & infographic video

A cool infographic from Earth-Touch.com, Rhinos By The Numbers tells a good story about the plight of rhinos and their struggle against poachers in Africa.

Here in South Africa, we lost 333 rhinos to poaching in 2010. And things are not looking up this year. Five incidents of poaching were recorded in just the first ten days of 2011. If you’re in the dark about the poaching crisis, you’ll find some need-to-know facts in our slick infographic (click to enlarge).

This is organized very well, and tells a very clear story that progresses as the reader moves downs the graphic.

They also created a great animated video based on the infographic!

Thanks to Chris for sending in the link!

Drunk Driving by the Numbers

The Real Effects of Drinking and Driving is a good infographic from CarInsuranceComparison.org.  It stays focused and tells one compelling story really well.  Some of the illustrations are just that, illustrations, when they could have visualized the numbers.

Thanks to Clyde for sending in the link!