How to use infographics to present data

There are many ways to present data and information that go beyond presentation slides and reports. For example, the website Information is Beautiful provides inspiration for visually appealing data presentations.

Thinking about the last step where we used contexts and examples to enable understanding of large numbers, we can use visual representations to convey this information.

Presenting data creatively

In this article, we provide some suggestions for tools that can be used to present information creatively. Even just looking at some of these tools may give you and your student’s ideas to better convey information to a specific audience.

One of the first steps is to decide how the audience for the presentation is going to engage with the content.

Some outputs may be ‘static’ (such as a PDF), others may be more visually engaging (such as online posters) or interactive (such as an interactive timeline).

Tools you can use

Most tools online will have free trials, that limit functionality, prevent downloading or have limits on the number of projects you can create. However, these may be suitable for use for a single project where submission is digital-only.

Always refer to your school or college policy on the use of third-party tools, in particular around data protection, and do not require submission of personal data by your students. You may also want to assess the suitability of examples and templates provided on these sites (including Information is Beautiful) for the age of your students.

Tip: Right-click or hold tap (on a mobile device) to open links in a new tab.

Scrollable webpages and documents

Online tools that enable the creation of very visual content in the format of scrollable webpages and documents include Microsoft Sway and Adobe Spark. These produce outputs designed for online engagement through both computers and mobile devices.

Posters

It’s also worth pointing out that some common presentation applications, such as Microsoft PowerPoint, Google Slides and Keynote can be used to create posters.

Simply set the slide size to be A4 or A3. You can also create long-format ‘scrollable’ posters designed for digital-only use by setting the slides to be portrait orientation and making the height 3-4 times greater than the width. Save as a PDF.

Infographic tools such as Piktochart, Canva and Visme, have free versions available. You may not be able to export content from these tools in free versions, so students may need to provide links to projects instead.

It’s worth checking ‘pricing’ pages to see a comparison of features for the free versions. Then, take a look at example templates for inspiration.