Infographics are a great tool to convey messages and data in a clear manner to viewers. A great tool to help create infographics is Canva. Canva is free but does have a paid subscription for more advanced features. It is very simple to use and only takes an average of 30 minutes to create an infographic. A reason that Canva is easy to use is because of its wide variety of templates that allow the user to input their own information on a prebuilt infographic rather than having to build one from scratch, but that is an option if you wanted to design your own.

Here is an example of a simple infographic create on Canva

I have had personal experience using Canva for the day of service last year with the honors program. We were tasked with designing infographics to teach people American sign language. Before that point, I have never used Canva before, but once I loaded the site it was super simple. It guides the user through each step. First, it’s either picking a template or design your own, then input whatever information or images you desire. Then finally once it’s complete save it to your computer and then you are ready to distribute your newly formed infographic. Canvas interface is easy to use and figure out and by being able to utilize such a simple site, projects you work on in the future will pop more since you will be able to make your own custom infographics.

Also, check out this video on using Canva:

Also, feel free to click here to check out 11 other tools to create infographics

Image link: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f9/Platform_Canvas_Original.png

When creating data visualizations, one must be mindful of how their targeted audience will read their information, how easy it is to access, and if it can be interpreted easily without much background information or interpretation. Articles like these, explain how important it is to decide what graphic one will use when presenting their data. The author provides great examples such as websites to use, things to consider, and introduces and explains example graphs.

For beginners getting into data visualizations, Excel and Google Sheets may be a good starting point. Once you’ve learned more, it would be beneficial to use a software like SPSS or Tableau. These two softwares are helpful when needing to compile data into a visual, and adding different elements that Excel or Google Sheets may not have had.

The visualization to the left is an example of what Tableau can produce when used by someone who knows the best way to visualize data. There is a pie chart, a bar graph, and a few other visualizations. It’s important to know that when creating such visualizations, coloring, font, size, and type all matter when determining how to best represent your data.