Learning patterns/How to prepare an infographics

A learning pattern fororganizational

How to prepare an infographics

problemInfographics can be a great way to make sense of complex data and share it with the public. Creating an infographic with a designer is a task, which has to have a plan and tips to create solid infographics to be kept in mind.

solutionWherever you are working with volunteer or paid designer, there should be a checklist of things to be assured before your infographic goes public.

creator• Antanana

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created on23:24, 11 February 2018 (UTC)

status:DRAFT

What problem does this solve?

Infographics are a convenient tool to visualize data and tell a story in a way it is easier to understand. It is a likely scenario, that the one who comes up with the idea for illustration, and one who actually creates an image, are different people and the latter is not necessarily a Wikimedian (say, external designer). Based on its experience on making orders for infographics, WMUA proposes this checklist of things one needs to have in mind while ordering an infographic.

What is the solution?

Things to consider

Keep in mind that any task needs time to be done, the best learning pattern won't help if you are three times late

Step : Gather data according to your chosen topic, make it a public pool. E.g. for "Wikipedia 13: numbers and facts", preferred statistics was gathered in etherpad^[1] and GoogleDoc^[2]. It is important to save links to all primary sources: pages, queries, calculations etc.
Step : Give your designer a technical task. This should include:
- topic, audience and distribution method (printed posters, instagram, mailing lists, etc.): format of an image (starting with orientation and size and up to colours and fonts) will depend greatly on this so better have first;
- data and your vision of the result;
- logos, preferred colours (if any);
- Visual identity guidelines: e.g., your designer should know that affiliate logo cannot be placed on coloured background, and Wikipedia logo better not be distorted.
Step :If infogaphic is complex, has a lot of details, consider having it 'cut' into small parts for sharing in social media. E.g. we didn't think of it first while creating File:UkWiki2017Infographics.png which is not pleasant-looking on a mobile device screen.
Step : Infogaphics should be published under free license (we all support CC, right?), this means there should be attribution on image itself — author/copyright owner and license. Most likely there will be some elements by other authors used in image, so it is a good idea to include a QR-code or a link to a page where all the authors will be attributed (and where you can cite sources for data), e.g. File:FOP-UA.png.
Step : If you work with a paid designer, talk with them about copyright ownership, whether work will be attributed to customer or designer.
Step : Concerning two previous steps, we recommend having a talk with your designer on free content and ask not to use copyrighted elements without permission, urge using free fonts, give a crash-course on searching files on Commons, explain what CC license would mean for their work. This is more relevant if you work with external designer, but even if you work with a Wikimedian volunteer it won't be in vain to remind the basics.
Step : Work with your designer, redo first draft, be prepared that you may not like the result first - that's because we still can't read each other's minds. For all this you will need time, so please don't ask a designer to create something 'for yesterday'. Time is crucial, always.

When to use

Infographics about the activity and gender gap of Ukrainian Wikipedia editors. If you want to get the number of editors whose gender is known, you can fork a query 21107 for your project

Wikipedia Anniversary

Wikipedia birthdays showed to be a good news story and event when wikimedians can raise awareness about Wikipedia. While mass media can share misinterpreted or misrepresented data, wikipedians are more competent to share right data using credible sources.

Content and Data Tips for X Wikipedia

Total number of articles^[3]
Place of X Wikipedia among language editions^[4]
Average monthly number of views^[5]
Average monthly number of edits^[6]
Usage from mobile devices like smartphones and tablets compared to one from desktops or notebooks^[7]
Number of active editors for the last month (5 and more edits)^[8]
Number of users that made at least one edit for the last 30 days^[9]
The most popular articles of the year^[10]
...

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