Unit 4 Reading

Chapter four of Cairo's book delves into the subject of beauty versus function, and design serving information. His point is that decoration or graphic style can crowd out or distract from the information intending to be displayed. This is somewhat of a rehash of some of the topic covered in chapter three, but in more depth.
 

Design in an infographic is best used as a way to express the information organized together to communicate the knowledge that is intended to be communicated to the reader. As such, it should be guided by the information content rather than vice versa, or rather than sacrificing some of the communication of that information for the sake of merely creating eye-catching elements.
 

After all, infographics, contrary to a popular misconception, aren't meant to simplify information, but rather to clarify and highlight information. As has been previously discussed, this is a great aid to the human brain beyond mere tables or other information hierarchies that require more memorization in order to gain the appropriate knowledge. In structuring design to serve information, one is simply making all that information more immediately apparent and striking.
 

But it is usually assumed that the reader is going to be too dense to really grasp the full knowledge intending to be conveyed. But this should really only be judged via the contextual interests of the demographics on the receiving end of the infographic, and it should only drive the designer to make the information that much more apparent and immediate, while not sacrificing necessary complexity.

Cairo goes step by step through his own conceptual guidance tool to more fully explain specific ways in which typical infographics can be given more complexity. The examples he gives involve weighing a little more in favor of multidimensionality and density (vs. unidimensionality and lightness, respectively), functionality and abstraction (vs. decoration and figuration), and originality and novelty (vs. familiarity and redundancy).
 

Finally, the designer should never forget the emotional factor. The best infographics stunningly display the informational content in such a way that they capture the reader's imagination and give a "boom" effect. This is the proper substitution for the overly decorated technique that one might be inclined to employ. It requires much more thought and practiced design, all in the service of the informational content.