Day 4 – Piktochart
Today I tackled a toughie – Piktochart. I was really excited to delve into this one as I love how Infographics can look. I must admit, this one took me all afternoon to complete, and I wasn’t really worried too much about what point I was trying to make, just that I made one. If I’m actually trying to prove a specific point, I think it will be much more difficult.
The first hurdle I had to overcome was to figure out which topic I wanted to cover. My plan was to do an infographic on startups, but I kind of got sidetracked looking for data, so opted data from the U.S. Census Bureau on women-owned businesses. Here’s what I came up with:
Likes
- Designs are cool (although I’d like to get my hands on some of the paid versions)
- Good graphic interface – easy to drag and drop things are around
Dislikes
- Very limited number of images I could use (I couldn’t even find something to symbolize $, which was irritating, had to use the car to symbolize working from home, and I couldn’t upload any of my own)
- Lots of work if you deviate from their template
- Lots of limitations in free version (including can’t save as HTML)
- Got errors when I tried to upload cvs file
- Formatting of pie graph was cloogie so I skipped it
- Comparisons are not data-driven, I had to eye-ball them all, which can be misleading
Bottom Line
So if you have data that will fit into their template, it’s pretty cool. Like many freemiums, you’d probably need to purchase the premium version (@$9.99 / month) to really do your infographic justice. But that’s certainly a lot cheaper than hiring a designer to do it for you. You’ll also need to set aside several hours as well, but it could be a good exercise. If you have even budget, I would definitely opt for a professional design, but if you don’t this is certainly a viable alternative.
Well, I have to agree that GOOD magazine info grhapics DO look good, but that’s where the GOOD stops. If one has ever read ANY Tufte, they’ll can quickly realize that GOOD magazine is one of the WORST perpetrators of the most fundamental NO-NOs in infogrhapics. Mainly, present the information in the simplest way so that you can easily visual trends and quantities. That flag is of immigration is (excuse my French) SH*T. Notably: why would you ever break up the Mexico quantity onto two lines? GOOD magazine does so that it can make a pretty graphic, but the price is paid in understanding and comprehension of the data.Just get it together GOOD. You’re pretty, but you’re also pretty dumb.