07/28/2020
There seem to be several kinds of human intelligence - emotional intelligence and tactile intelligence come to mind - and everyone has different strengths in them all.
When the job is to teach or close or debate or recommend or convince or acquire or persuade - the more channels you engage, the better your chance of successfully communicating your argument using a "language" in which your recipient is fluent.
All those jobs above traditionally depend on the left cortex of the human brain. This is where words, numbers, and contexts are considered. Makes sense. But why not appeal to the right cortex as well? This is where images, spatial relationships, and imagination dwell. Logically, the brain uses both hemispheres to come to decisions, so why not include an infographic to reach parts of your audience (maybe an audience of one) that might be "right-brain" oriented. Remember, when Tesla invented AC electricity, he first SAW the electrons moving back and forth over wire as an image in his mind.
An infographic isn't a poster, it's a re-interpretation of text and speech conveying complex, hard to define, abstruse or boring data - in a visual form. An enlarged chunk of written text or a spreadsheet isn't an example of an infographic. A well-drawn chart is.
A good infographic always reinforces the spoken and written data, and vice versa. A blueprint is hybrid data where words and numbers reinforce the value of the image data on the blueprint.
