Infographic Analysis

Our group looked at an infographic, which can be seen here: http://www.houseofbooker.net/infocharts/1266730949337.jpg

After reviewing our collective comments on the graphic, it appeared that they fell into two categories: how the design elements themselves were directing our behavior as viewers as we approached the visual display, and how the design elements were influencing our interpretation of the information displayed. That Barthes discussed the presumptions possible through employing ideas of myth in communication, implies that it's possible to influence audiences quietly, using recognized and accepted metaphors, and the two formal models of communication (per Craig), transmission and constitutive, which Bruce Clarke mentioned in "Communication" were in my mind as I thought about this division.


Design as Directing Users

• Color coordinates the three main areas of the page, which illustrates the interconnectivity of the information. Also noted that population is set off in a different color scheme.

• A visual break separates the three main pieces of information to review.

• The white circle in the center of the graphic draws the eye first, then the longer of the radiating lines draw the eye to the other information areas on the graphic. (royal blue -- to the title in the upper left, teal and green -- to the population graphic in the lower right, gold stands out and draws the eye up toward the cluster of pie charts in the top right corner)

• The relative size of the individual pie charts corresponds to the amount of recycled materials. 8 of the 19 materials are not recycled at all. (Perhaps their scattered placement down the right side is meant to make the reader slow down and absorb each fact individually when moving through, rather than to show relationship to each other?)


Design as Rhetoric & Distortion

• The graphic seems to be missing a main title. Without this, the reader must work to discern the overall theme and goal of the display.

• Circle widths represent years, decades and centuries, moving out on the circle. This distorts the difference in longevity of some elements.

• Because it doesn't have a corresponding graphic, the "If Demand Grows" information seems to be less important than the other illustrated information.

• It seems as though the impact of the American consumer's role in depleting these resources is minimized by *not* comparing American per capita consumption to that of the rest of the world. We only see our own figures, which are interesting -- but not frightening -- because there's nothing to compare them to except the levels of the other materials we consume.

• Interesting that the radial structure of the "central" graphic implies a meeting of ends, rather than a more temporally accurate spatial representation of the staggering of resources disappearing. For instance, the lower estimate for time remaining of indium is 4 years, while the upper estimate for aluminum is 1027 years. Yet, the graphic, which uses coterminous bar graphs (almost a kind of video game-like resource meter) to show quantity remaining (in a somewhat logarithmic scale).

• The sleek and simple quantification of resources almost removes the consequences of acquiring and disposing the material. These ignored consequences range from environmental to the political.