Infographics

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 Welcome

Hello 

I am back again with another blog to introduce infographics. What are infographics? Merriam-Webster defines infographic as: "(noun) a chart, diagram, or illustration (as in a book, magazine, or on a website)that uses graphic elements to present information in a visually striking way". Infographic Definition

It's a beneficial way to share types of information with others in a brief, appealing manner without overwhelming them with too much text. Different types of media use infographics to share statistics, events, or information to the general public. It's amazing how much infographics are used these days!

Examples include:
  • Pie charts, bar graphs, line graphs, table chart, pictorial chart
  • Fun facts
  • Percentages
  • Dos and Don'ts list
  • Survey results
  • Milestones, pros and cons list, word clouds, performance chart
  • timelines, step by step guides, comparison chart
  • And much more!

Exploring....

Now, to explore different types of methods to create infographics! There are so many available sites and apps that let you create infographics, most of them include additional features that you have to pay for. But! There is an abundant amount of sites and apps that you can use for free.

Theses are the sites I will be using:


I will be 100% honest here. I have never used these sites before, so it's going to be interesting to try them out. The site/app of my preference had been Canva, so that is the one I'm most familiar with and I have used Canva for personal purposes and I have created things for my school work. For the purpose of this blog, I will create an infographic of different styles and share some pros and cons for each. 




Piktochart

One of the first sites I will be sharing is piktochart. http://piktochart.com/. The first thing I look at is all the available features that the site has as well as try making something. For this purpose, I made an infographic on fat burning foods as a sample. 

Dashboard


Sample Infographic- sample

While using piktochart, I noticed some similarities to Canva. The Dashboard (called a "Workspace") has a layout where you can pick what design you would like to create from the template library plus have all your works to edit or delete as you like. 

Pros
  • Template library that has a variety of options
  • Easy navigation
  • Contains an inspiration library to get ideas 
  • Create videos or import from sources such as Google Drive or Zoom
  • Able to upload your own pictures or graphics
  • Sidebar options for what type of graphic you want
Cons
  • Might need a learning curve if user is unfamiliar with using a graphic design site or app
  • Many graphics or media only available for the pro version
  • Users need to pay $168 annually or $29 a month to access pro features
  • Limited upload space on the free version
  • Contains a download limit on the free version
  • Lots of scrolling through sidebar for options


Easel.ly


Next on the list is easel.ly. http://www.easel.ly/. Looking at the Dashboard, it appears more sleek and modern. Definitely more appealing for someone who wants a minimal design instead of a cluttered one. 

Dashboard



Sample (Learning Styles)- sample

Pros
  • Simple, easy to follow layout 
  • Minimalistic design 
  • Variety of templates separated by categories 
  • Pro upgrade is $4 per month or $48 annually. Includes 30 free student accounts, 300+ premium templates, ability to export PDF/PNG/JPEG and more
  • User-friendly 
  • Upload your own photos or media
Cons
  • Limited templates without the pro version
  • Student accounts need to be paid for
  • Limited number of student accounts in the pro version, not enough accounts for large number of classes
  • Limited number of charts, fonts, backgrounds and templates in the free version
  • Free version only lets you download designs in low quality 
  • This was probably my computer, but it was hard to arrange the graphics on my laptop without it kind of glitching and my computer screen went black! Thank goodness I was able to restore my pages

Infogram


Last but not least is infogram. http://infogr.am. The dashboard has a dark theme to it which I quite like and very fond of. One of the cool features I noticed in terms of the templates is that there is a template that is responsive for web or mobile layouts. How cool!

Dashboard


For this infographic, I visited https://www.pewresearch.org and read this article about how teens navigated school during the pandemic.
Article. A lot of us in the educational field know how many students were affected during the pandemic and many fell behind from school which created a learning gap. 

"Eight-in-ten U.S. teens ages 13 to 17 say they attended school completely in person over the past month, according to a new Pew Research Center survey conducted April 14-May 4. Fewer teens say they attended school completely online (8%) or did so through a mix of both online and in-person instruction (11%) in the month prior to taking the survey." (Anderson, M., Faverio, M., and McClain, C., How Teens Navigate School During COVID-19). 

As I looked over the various data, I created pie charts to represent the percentage of what method did students use to attend school. I chose a pictorial chart to represent the number of teens (specifically by race) that preferred school to be completely online. Although not shown on the chart, the numbers vary by race, ethnicity, and household income. Then, I chose the stacked charts to represent how teens and parent felt in regards to how the school was handling virtual learning. 

"Teens hold mixed views of how their schools tackled remote schooling. Some 28% of teens say they are extremely or very satisfied with the way their school has handled virtual learning, while a similar share report being only a little or not at all satisfied with their school’s performance. Some teens fall in the middle of the spectrum, with 33% saying they are somewhat satisfied with this. (Another 9% state their school has not had virtual learning.)" (Anderson, M., Faverio, M., and McClain, C., How Teens Navigate School During COVID-19). 

I even added a screenshot of a stacked graph from the article that displays percentages of teens and parents who expressed concern about falling behind in school during the pandemic. Lastly, I did this bar graph (which doesn't look like there's a lot of difference) of percentage of teens who do not have access or have a laptop/computer at home which affected virtual learning as well. Here is the sample I created for this article:


Sample (COVID-19)- sample

Pros
  • Dark theme, best for users that don't like bright dashboard
  • Can create a design that is responsive to web and mobile devices
  • Can insert various charts and edit data for statistics
  • Change icons and colors for data charts
  • Access layers of the project
  • View your project on fullscreen to admire the finished look!
Cons
  • Need to have experience with infographic making sites or apps to use infogram
  • Unable to download or print on the free version
  • Only able to download in high quality or make a PNG/JPG/PDF in the pro version
  • Costs $25 a month or $228 annually for a pro version 
  • Have to edit data accordingly and it takes time
  • Only able to access more features and premium content on pro version

Conclusion

All in all, it was a great learning experience to try these different platforms to create infographics. In hindsight, I do prefer Canva the most, but for the sake of this blog, I will go with piktochart as my number one choice due to the similarities of both of them. The only downside to it is the limited content or feature you get on the free version. Pricing for the pro version is a bit pricey for some people, but I do think it's cheaper than more professional sites out there. Second would be easel.ly, I put it in 2nd place since the price is the most affordable of the three sites. The problem I have with it is some minor glitching (maybe it was my computer) when I arrange graphics and my screen went black! (MINOR freak out occurred but anyways...) Also, the limited number for student accounts (30) might not be enough for large classes, so there's that to take into consideration. Last place is unfortunately infogram. I think this site requires the most experience and it's time consuming when it comes to editing data for the charts. Either way, this was a learning experience for me to try out and it was fun to create different types of infographics as well! Try making some today and share information like you never did before.


Sources




Comments

  1. Brianne SonnierJune 27, 2022 at 5:57 PM

    First of all, I really appreciated your detailed explanation of what infographics are, as well as the examples you provided in your introduction. I also loved how you outlined the pros and cons of each of the three sites you evaluated. This is very helpful for newbies like me when it comes to making infographics!

    I too have used Canva relatively frequently for my small businesses and find it to be a great tool, although I will admit that I don't get very fancy with my graphics and have made things that fall under the "Advertisement" wheelhouse more than the "Infographic" category.

    One of the biggest things I noticed about these programs, that you did as well, is the cost. While each one had a way for infographics to be made through the free versions, the limitations were very apparent and often frustrating. Ultimately, I chose Piktochart, like you, to create my infographic and found a template that allowed me to create some very nice looking graphs to support the research article I cited.

    Thanks again for sharing such great information that can be used when using any of these three programs to create my own infographics in the future!

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  2. Mrs. ZellersJune 29, 2022 at 12:04 PM

    Hi Alexa! I really enjoyed reading your blog over infographics. I also have to be honest about this assignment. I, too, use Canva frequently, so that is my preference. I started out using Piktochart for my infographic, but I was struggling for some reason. I decided to switch to Easl.ly to complete it. I found that site much more user-friendly. Plus, I only see small groups, so the allowable number of student accounts works just fine for my needs. I really like your infographic though! It's super easy to read, but not overstimulating. Sometimes, I think too much detail and decoration makes it difficult to focus! Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts with us, Alexa!
    Wendy :)

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  3. Mrs. AveytiaJune 29, 2022 at 9:40 PM

    Hello! Thank you for your pros and cons. I have played around with Canva, but never really sat down and created something with it. I also had to sit down and work on each one to see what I could do with each website we were assigned. At first, I thought I would like Infogram but I ended up creating mine with Piktochart. I learned a lot from this lesson since it was my first time learning about infographics.

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  4. Amber NealJuly 21, 2022 at 2:46 PM

    The pricing seems to always play a part in great resources. I could see advocating for a tool like this. Also, in a small district like mine, we wouldn't need as many licenses but in large, rich districts it may be more difficult. The number of features is something you can't always be picky about either.

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