Infographic skills: No longer optional for journalists

First, a confession: My foremost reason for writing this post is so I can embed a really cool infographic about Google on my blog.

But the fact that I want to do it reflects the power and beauty of infographics. A good infographic combines the visual splendor of print with the accessibility and engagement of the Web. Used well, it can give information an appeal and interactivity that even the best prose cannot match. It encourages your readers to dwell on data they would otherwise skim over.

Granted, infographics of this quality are not easily produced. “Google’s Collateral Damage,” for instance, was produced for SEO Book by infographic specialist Jess Bachman, and presumably did not come cheap or without many hours of planning.

But something as simple as a map or an annotated photograph can qualify as an infographic and enhance the effectiveness of a story. Yes, stock photography is easier. But as Heather Rubesch noted earlier this week, stock art has more than a few downsides. Though it will entail greater effort, a relevant infographic will add far more value.

Infographics are not unique to the Web (magazine consultant Howard Rauch has promoted their use for years). But in this new medium, they have more power, reach, and value.  If you ignore them, your future as a journalist is at risk. When the Huffington Post hired journalism student Chris Spurlock recently, it wasn’t because of the novelty of his infographic resume. It was because in the Web era, the ability to think in both prose and graphics is an increasingly critical skill.

So journalists, content marketers, and writers alike take note: Infographic skills are no longer optional.

Google's Collateral Damage.

Click to enlarge

Infographic by SEO Book

Will Mobile Formats Change Web Design Habits?

Back in July, I wrote in this blog about how Reader, a new feature in Apple’s Safari browser, called attention to the proliferation of clutter in most Web page layouts. My hope was that tools like Reader and its peers, Readability and Instapaper, would encourage cleaner Web design.

It was, admittedly, a faint hope. But I was heartened this week to read an article on The Media Briefing that suggests a much stronger corrective is on the horizon. Its author, Martin Belam, notes how, as computer monitors have grown ever larger, publishers have happily stuffed all kinds of buttons, icons, ad formats, link collections, and other flotsam into their browser pages.

With the exploding popularity of mobile form factors, whether phone or tablet, that approach to design will change:

“There simply isn’t room for 15 related story links, a most-read panel, and 100 ways to share an article on the screen of a smartphone or small tablet—not to mention advertising. This forces a concentration on what the user is most likely to want to do next after consuming a story. It means carefully thinking about whether uniform global navigation that can take you from any one section to all other possible sections is appropriate. It also means thinking about what are the real interactions you are hoping to encourage from the reader—to share the story, to comment on the story, or to dive deeper into a specific topic?”

Though he doesn’t quite say it, Belam strongly implies that the design habits required of mobile content producers will spread to Web producers. The mechanism behind this influence is unclear, but I’d guess it has something to do with readers’ preferences. Faced with a choice between the clutter of the Web and the simplicity of mobile, they will choose mobile. And as that trend accelerates,  Web designers will respond with simpler, streamlined designs.

So maybe it’s time for all of us to think mobile. As Belam says, cutting back on “the bells and whistles that make up so much online furniture” encourages “deeper and more engaged reading.” As content producers, why would we want anything less?

Saving Your Content from Web Clutter

Until very recently, Safari, Apple’s Web browser, has for me always come in a distant second to Firefox. But with the latest update to Safari, that may change.  A new feature in Safari 5.0, Reader, is a compelling tool for reducing an article on the Web to its essence: the words.

That such a tool is necessary underscores just how unfriendly to readers most Web sites have become. Why is it that online publications make it so hard to read the articles that are their main reason for existence?

Granted, a certain amount of clutter is inevitable. Without devices like logos, in-line links, and navigational aids, the Web isn’t the Web. (Witness the debate Nicholas Carr set off when, weary of those “little textual gnats buzzing around your head,” he modestly proposed trading inline links for footnoted ones.)

But as sites start to accrete banner and text ads, e-book downloads, affiliation badges, boxes highlighting related and popular articles, and far too much more, the story gets increasingly hard to find, and difficult to read when you do find it.

Take, for example, a recent article on Forbes.com, “The Fifth Wave of Computing” by Trevor Butterworth. If you set out to make an article unreadable, you couldn’t do much better than this.

Click to enlarge

It doesn’t get better as you go further down the page, either (especially considering that when you get to the bottom, you have to click a “next” link to read the remainder of the story).

Screen capture of Forbes article

To  our rescue comes Safari’s Reader.

Screen capture of Forbes page using Safari Reader

Instead of heaps of distracting clutter, we get nothing but the essential article content, and all in one page—no page jumps to deal with.

Safari’s Reader is not perfect. It may leave off by-lines or author photos, as in the above example, or struggle to place images correctly. That’s one reason why, if you value your Web content and hope for meaningful engagement with site visitors, it’s in your interest to reduce clutter to a minimum. Your goal should be to design your site for real readers, not Safari’s.

Nerd-note: Safari’s Reader has its roots in a browser bookmarklet called Readability, which works in almost all browsers.  Though it produces equally readable text, it doesn’t integrate into the browsing experience as smoothly as Reader. In addition, it seems not to load all the pages in a multipage article, as Reader does.