Infographics Are Developing Into Complex Content

When the World Bank wanted to show the extent of its education effort, it didn’t simply publish a table or release a document. It created an interactive infographic that allowed visitors to see which information was released, where and how much work the bank has produced. It was an ambitious effort which didn’t entirely work. The massive amount of data the infographic contains is hard to navigate and many important details are hidden in sub-menus that are only available to people who know what to look for.

But the effort does show just how much infographics are changing. While simple, visual facts with a clear narrative flow remain the most popular way of turning data into a story, some content marketers are experimenting with forms that are becoming increasingly complex. That complexity is manifesting itself in three different ways.

Some infographics are becoming modular. Instead of one long vertical strip that can lose audiences before the end, they’re made up of independent parts that can be broken out and viewed separately, like the World Bank’s education charts. Viewers may be able to share individual sections, and content marketers can put together the elements in different ways to tell different stories and illustrate other forms of content such as traditional articles or blog posts. These can be overly- complex and are still relatively rare but as content marketers use them well, expect to see more brands turning to modular infographics.

Infographics Become Mini-Sites

Other infographics are becoming complete content destinations. Often using horizontal sectional scrolling in place of a poster-sized chart or a long vertical strip, these infographics make for more defined storytelling and can integrate more complex forms of content such as video. The result should be a more engaging experience with a stronger impact that takes the format closer to a website than a static image.

AccessBetterCoverage.org, for example, was created to help consumers understand health care coverage and prescription medicine. The minisite shows the inspiration of infographics, with its large, colorful graphics and a vertical scroll that takes audiences from the basics through the numbers. But details are broken out on separate pages creating a more complex flow that can run horizontally as well as vertically and provide links to research articles. It’s a design that adds much more detail to the overview usually provided by an infographic.

And some websites are combining the style of infographics with video and written content to deliver complete, long-form stories rich in information. Audiences can consume all of the content or they can choose between the text, the video and the infographics to pick up the information they want. This article from the BBC, for example, uses a mixture of video and animated charts to show the success of Millennium Development Goals in reducing child mortality in Africa.

Infographics might usually be made up of large images that are quickly consumed and easily shared but the creativity of content marketing means that there are always new and more complex ways to turn data into a story.

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