We chose infographics as our foray into the world of education because infographics are the best way to communicate a large amount of information in the most effective format, to educate the greatest number of people in the shortest amount of time.
How so, you ask? Well there are three things involved here.
First, infographics are a form of visual communication. Through the use of two dimensional pictures, infographics are able to communicate vast amounts of information in a small amount of space. And research shows that visual communication is the most effective way to convey information. Jerome Bruner, a psychologist from New York University, has conducted studies showing that people only remember 10 – 20 percent of what they hear and read, but approximately 80 percent of what they see and do. Training materials used by the federal government cite studies by educational researchers suggesting that 83 percent of human learning occurs visually.
Second, education is a conveyance of knowledge. And knowledge is assimilation of information. And infographics bring all three together. They assimilate information in an effort to convey knowledge and in turn educate.
Third, well-designed infographics have the potential of going viral on the net and reaching, and thus educating, virtually millions of people. The process starts when someone sees an attractive infographic conveying interesting facts. They immediately email the infographic to their friends. Then a friend on the email list sees the infographic and is impressed. Through the use of simple code, he or she is able to embed the infographic on his or her website or blog. Soon a reader of the blog stumbles across the infographic and tweets it. Another reader shares it via Facebook. Others begin picking it up and doing the same. And eventually, an infographic that started in Seattle ends up in Timbuktu, educating multitudes along the way.
