London’s Expected House Price Gain

London’s Expected House Price Gain from Freehold Sale looks at the dramatic price increases expected in the London, UK, housing market.

London is an exciting place to live. Pick the right borough and you can enjoy the best of both worlds – the buzz of the city and access to amazing jobs, plus large open green spaces, top schools and an excellent quality of life.

It’s no wonder that property in our capital city remains in high demand, driven by an innate desire to live in and around the capital. It’s an investment goldmine – we hear almost daily how London’s property market outpaces the remainder of the country and will continue to do so for years to come. Real estate group, CRBE forecast prices in London could rise more than 30 per cent over the next five years.

Essentially, it could be a good gamble, but whereabouts should you look? If you have a sizeable deposit rubbing a hole on your wallet and fancy purchasing a freehold in London, here are the expected price rises for the next five years:

Color coding can be a tricky way to visualize data. The readers have to refer back to the color key frequently to understand the design, especially when it takes scrolling to look back and forth.

The footer should include the URL back to the infographic landing page so readers can find the original full-size version of the design when they come across smaller versions posting on blogs and social media.

Thanks to David for sending in the link!

Ink Costs More Than Human Blood

The Ink Costs More Than Human Blood infographic is a demonstration design by the team at Nuesion.

I think this is a fantastic design, but lacks some crucial elements for a successful infographic.  The overall design is telling one story very clearly, and that’s one of the best practices in infographic design.  Some of the best infographics have one Key Message that the audience can’t miss, and this design nails it!

The problem I see with this design is that it lacks credibility.  There are no sources listed, so the audience doesn’t know where the data came from or how current it is.  Why should they believe the data visualization?  Is it biased or skewed in any way?  Without doing a ton of research on their own, the audience has no way to tell.

Also, the footer of the design is missing both copyright information and a URL to the infographic landing page.  It lists the nuesion.com home page, but it took some digging on my part to find the original high-resolution infographic buried in one of their blog posts.

Find the Best Airline Fees

Traveling is a pleasure that we don’t want to give up, but costs keep rising! Find the Best Airline For You infographic from Nerd Wallet lets you know which airline to travel on depending on your traveling habits to keep the costs down!

U.S. airlines continue to increase fees - more fees and higher fees.  However, there are no standards or regulations when it comes to airline fees so travelers don’t know what to expect.  Fee prices range widely by airline, and there is little transparency on the terms of each fee.  For example, some fees are charged based on how stops are made, while others are billed as flat fees.  Some fees have a base rate but increase from the time of booking to boarding the plane.  

As a result, cost comparison is extremely difficult, especially when travelers are evaluating multiple airlines.  To make matters worse, fees are not properly disclosed – they are hidden within multiple layers on airlines’ websites and shrouded by vague wording.  NerdWallet gathered the data and analyzed each fee across all major U.S. airlines.  To help travelers save money, we defined several traveler profiles and calculated fees on a comparable basis to determine which airline is best (and worst) for each type of traveler.

There are a handful of things I like about this one.  

• The main thing is that throughout all of the Lowest/Highest comparisons, the scale of the bar charts is kept consistent.  This allows the reader to easier understand how much money is related to each travel fee.
• The green-red (good-bad) color scheme is instantly understandable to the reader.
• The icons (all in blue) are easy to understand.  By keeping them all a consistent solid blue color, they are kept simple and don’t create a bunch of “visual noise” that would distract the reader.
• Sources are listed at the bottom
• The direct URL to the original infographic is included at the bottom so readers can find the high-resolution original no matter where they find it posted on the Internet.

I would suggest using the airline logos, even in a solid color, to make it easier for the readers to pick out the airlines they recognize.

Thanks to Annie for sending in the link!

Global Hotel Price Changes

A new infographic from Hotels.com showing some of the Global Hotel Price Changes from 2010 to 2011.

The research revealed that:

• New York was the favourite travel destination for UK travellers in the first six months of the year despite the average hotel price in the city hitting £160, according to the latest Hotels.com Hotel Price Index™ (HPI®).
• The 6% rise followed strong demand from domestic travellers and a surge of overseas visitors cashing in on the appreciation of their currencies against the US Dollar.
• The Big Apple was one of six US cities in the top 20 list with Las Vegas, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Orlando and Miami also featuring as the Pound held its own.

I like the design experiment with the Polar Area Diagram (Nightingale Rose Diagram), but the colored sections relating to two different axis are a little hard to understand.  I really like the monument silouettes for each destination.  Very similar to an earlier design InfoNewt did for them about the Hotel Price Index.

The infographic is missing some form of copyright license and the URL to make it easier to find the original infographic.

Thanks to Sarah for sending in the link!