Information graphics or infographics are graphic visual representations of information, data or knowledge intended to present complex information quickly and clearly.
They can improve cognition by utilizing graphics to enhance the human visual system's ability to see patterns and trends.

Infographics have been around for many years and recently the proliferation of a number of easy-to-use, free tools have made the creation of infographics available to a large segment of the population. Even though they are used more an dmore and readers may get overflown with infographics, Infographics remain a very attractive communication channels with your target groups ... provided a few rules and common sense steps are well applied.

At MAC-Team with the support of the Respect partners, and more especially with our partner Limelight Consulting, we successfully designed an infographic for the Respect project on Responsible purchasing practices in the supply chain. This infographic enabled to disseminate the results of a survey much more widely towards consumers and also towards the various stakeholders of the supply chain. It also attracted and succeeded in getting the active involvement of a leading Buyer (Patagonia) to engage its panel of consumers into the survey directly. In addition the infographic also constitute a very good training and awareness raisong materials that we re-use in the training sessions with buyers and suppliers in the context of the Respect project.

In newspapers, infographics are commonly used to show the weather, as well as maps, site plans, and graphs for statistical data. Social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter have also allowed for individual infographics to be spread among many people around the world.Some books are almost entirely made up of information graphics, such as David Macaulay's The Way Things Work. More and more simple infographics used in newspapers and on TV news to convey news and current events.

Modern maps, especially route maps for transit systems, use infographic techniques to integrate a variety of information, such as the conceptual layout of the transit network, transfer points, and local landmarks. Public transportation maps are well-known infographics. Public places such as transit terminals usually have some sort of integrated "signage system" with standardized icons and stylized maps.

In his 1983 'landmark book' The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Edward Tufte defines 'graphical displays' in the following passage:
"Graphical displays should:

• show the data
• induce the viewer to think about the substance rather than about methodology, graphic design, the technology of graphic production or something else
• avoid distorting what the data have to say
• present many numbers in a small space
• make large data sets coherent
• encourage the eye to compare different pieces of data
• reveal the data at several levels of detail, from a broad overview to the fine structure.
• serve a reasonably clear purpose: description, exploration, tabulation or decoration.
• be closely integrated with the statistical and verbal descriptions of a data set.

Graphics reveal data. Indeed graphics can be more precise and revealing than conventional statistical computations."

While contemporary infographics often deal with 'qualitative' or soft subjects, generally speaking Tufte's 1983 definition still speaks, in a broad sense, to what infographics are, and what they do—which is to condense large amounts of information into a form where it will be more easily absorbed by the reader.

• Infographic by RESPECT on the responsible purchasing practices (the infographic can also be donwloaded here below)
• WIkipedia page on Flipped teachingInfographic