An infographic (information graphic)
is a representation of information in a graphic format designed to make the
data easily understandable at a glance. People use infographics to quickly
communicate a message, to simplify the presentation of large amounts of data,
to see data patterns and relationships, and to monitor changes in variables
over time.
Infographics abound in almost any
public environment traffic signs, subway maps, tag clouds, musical scores and
weather charts are just a few examples, among a huge number of possibilities.
In the enterprise, infographics are
used by all levels of management for high-level views of data. Infographics
include bar graphs, pie charts, histograms, line charts, tree diagrams, mind
maps, Gantt charts, and network diagrams. Such tools are often components of
business intelligence software. As the amount of data being amassed in the
enterprise and elsewhere increases, infographics are being used more and more
frequently to help people understand the information contained in that data.