When visualizing your data, there are 2 things to keep in mind:
- What's the goal of your data? What do you want it to achieve?
- What kind of data do you have?
Knowing your data type and what you hope to convey will inform what kind of visualizations you should use for your infographic. Using Venngage's ICCORE method, there are 6 different types of goals most people wish to convey with data visualization:
- Inform - Convey an important message that is quick to read and comprehend.
- Compare - Show similarities or differences between values.
- Change - Demonstrating trends over time and place.
- Organize - Show groups, patterns, or rankings.
- Reveal relationships - Show complex associations between values.
- Explore - When you want the reader to interact with the data and discover things for themselves.
Each of these goals helps to inform what type of visualization might fit your project best. For example, demonstrating change might require a timeline while revealing relationships might need a scatterplot or a network graph.
As far as what kind of data you possess, knowing whether you plan to work with text, numbers, or even coordinates alters how you are able to visualize something.
