Want to Convey a Message? Put It In an Infographic

Infographics are a really innovative, powerful and effective way to convey messages and concepts in eLearning – but as with so many components of multimedia learning, they only work if they’re done well.

Including an infographic in your eLearning training is a good way to engage your employees because it serves as a means to tie in facts and visual elements, increase engagement, and change the pace of what your learner is seeing and experiencing on the screen. To see how this will look, try adding a course in the eLeaP system.

It’s also a great way to take a lot of information and condense it into tiny bits so that the learner can more easily digest the important takeaways. If you’re worried about having an information overload or having your learners be unable to focus on what’s most important in your multimedia learning, developing an infographic that can cut through some of those fears.

When you’re creating an infographic to include in your training or development, you have to focus on a few key elements which include:

• The information: When you’re designing an infographic, it’s important to realize that first and foremost, beyond any visual elements, the information being presented should be your top priority. Try to shorten the amount of data and information you include in a single infographic and do your best to condense, condense, condense. The goal of an infographic is to keep your learner focused on the information that’s of the utmost importance, so don’t make them weed through the “noise” to get to what they need in an infographic.
• The visual elements: When you’re designing an infographic, once you’ve decided on the key points, it’s time to move to the visual components—rather than trying to grab attention for all the wrong reasons, work to create a visual design that tells a cohesive story representative of the data and information you’re presenting. You want to get the attention of your learner but not through outlandish or unrelated visuals.

• Colors: Colors are intrinsically tied into how we feel about information, how we process it, and remember it. You must think carefully about your color choice. There needs to be a sense of balance between choosing colors that are bold and engaging and having colors that don’t overwhelm the information or the story you’re trying to tell. It’s best to try and keep your color choices to just a few on a single infographic. One good design tip is to choose a primary color that’s vibrant and attention-grabbing and then, utilize different tones of that same color throughout. The result is that you have an infographic that’s visually interesting without being “too much.”
• Fonts: Fonts have a lot more importance in eLearning and infographics than you may realize—fonts can evoke emotions and they even have their own meaning. For example, think about how you feel about reading text that’s written in a bold font versus a fun and whimsical font. It can have a completely different meaning to you, right? When you’re designing an infographic keep this in mind and try to choose fonts that go along with the message you’re working to get across to your learner. You wouldn’t want a safety-based eLearning infographic that’s full of fun and silly fonts, because it may not get across the idea that what’s being presented, is incredibly important.
• Statistics: If you include statistics in your infographic, as with the overall information, ensure they’re relevant. If you don’t feel like you have statistics that are going to add to your message you don’t have to include them—it’s not a necessity, particularly not if it’s going to distract from what you’re trying to show your learner.

Do you use infographics in your eLearning and if so, do you have any design tips that have helped you create great content? What have you found to better engage your team? See if this white paper can give you some ideas.