How do audiences or readers perceive infographics?
 
Since 1991 the “Poynter Institute”, one of the most important center for training journalists in the United States, has conducted a study called "Eyetrack" that analyzes and records the way that readers see and navigate through the pages of newspaper, identifying entry points to the page and which elements attract attention and motivate them to read the text of the information. The results are very favorable for infography, these are some of the conclusions:

1) Infography is the genre that catches a reader on the page longer than others.

2) 77% enter to the page visually because of the infographics, 61% because of the photography and 36% because of the headline.

3) 87% of readers who see an infographic read the text and 41% read the text because of the headline.

The readers avoid newspapers not only because we don’t tell them the stories that they want to know, but also because we don’t tell them the stories as they want. The problem is not only what, as has been done, but also "How".

Finally, we have to remember that new generations do not tell stories as we do and the most important is that they do not read (or see or hear) like their parents or older siblings. We must realize that the way they get information has changed a lot and for them the visual, synthetic, fast and sexy is what counts.


Only infographics could save the newspapers (1)

Why I say this? Because infographics offers all the tools to end the classic formula of journalism: Information = Title + Text + Photo. This formula has served for many years. It was like a safety mechanism for journalists of any condition. Our route book. That, however, has come to standardize the way to tell the reality, subjecting it to the narrow confines of the textual narrative.

Scientific studies as the one developed by the University of Lund (Sweden), presented in the new edition of Malofiej, show that infography is the genre that catches readers on the page more time than the others. Because of its nature and its features, the infographics attract the curiosity of readers, who understand well the visual and extremely fragmented language. So, why not apply the mixture of this new era of infographics to tell how the news are?

Some newspapers are now known because they have broken old patterns. First “Liberation” in France, then “Correio Braziliense” in Brazil and later “The Independent” in the UK ... one day they decided to change fundamentally their cover pages and used new languages with strong intentional load or editorializing. Figures, phrases, pictures, graphics, charts, diagrams, comics ... any tool was valid. However, few and rarely of them have let this narrative tsunami invades the inside pages. That is the biggest challenge, neither once nor in special occasions, but always.

Anyway, the trouble for media companies is that this means to bet for quality without regards: facing job cuts and assistants, staffs with more experience, more numerous and more skilled.  Some trick had to have the recipe!

History of the visual journalism

1. From "Por qué la infografía salvará al periodismo” by Javier Errea. Infographics World Summit Malofiej 16, Pamplona, Spain, March 2008.