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Feb 21 2012

Infographics – the Long and the Short of It – Defining the [infographic]

Category: design & user experience,pinterest,social media,social media marketing,tech opinion — jmacofearth @ 10:23 pm

I moderated a panel at the Social Media Club in Austin to discuss infographics. You know those little pictograms or things you either love or hate. The USA Today chart that looks like a rain cloud or the really really long image and numbers about how awesome facebook is. First a thanks to Kat Mandelstein, the chair of #smca for asking me to be a part of this lively discussion. And to Joey McGirr for tagging me in a photo even though I wasn't in the photo. And thanks to the panel: StatesmanGrafix ekmedia the_infographic Fishco_Studios all worthy folks to follow.

So let's cut to the chase here. Aside from being passionate about infographics and the efficient communication of information, I learned a few things that we should all think about.

1. Long or Short?
The form should follow the function. If the data supports a long story then perhaps the infographic can unravel the data in a long-form infographic. But for the most part, short is sweet. As screens compress again in the form of phones and tablets, the efficient use of screen space will be more critical. Perhaps interactive graphics can provide layering rather than scrolling.

2. Do we need more names for types of infographics? (data visualization, fancy chart, diagram)
There are definitely a number of genres of infographic. And there was a bit of a dispute over naming them different things. Even the name info-graphic is an abbreviation for Information Graphic. So the criteria should be the compression of data and images to convey a concept or relationship.

3. Infographics really start with the data.
The visualization is what the artist brings to the table to create an infographic-win that either succeeds with a memorable combination of color, words, numbers, and images, or an infographic-fail that is merely gumming up the internet with useless pictures that have little or no relevance to the ideas being presented.

4. Mobile could be the killer app that kills the long-form infographic forever.
No one is going to scroll down ten screens on their smart phone to read your infographic. No matter how smart the phone, or the infographic, or the person hoping to glean a bit of useful information.

So is the current rage towards ever-lengthening infographics going to end? Let's hope so. But in the mean time let's agree that if the image and the data don't fit together, perhaps you're better off going with a pretty chart from Excel rather than trying to fashion an infographic.

I've captured some of the best and worst infographics on my pinterest page: jmacofearth on pinterest

@jmacofearth (also seen on Google+: jmacofearth)
permalink: http://uber.la/2012/02/infographics/

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Tags: charts and graphs, data visualization, data viz, Excel, fancy charts, infographic, jmacofearth, pinterest, social media club

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Feb 21 2012

PIN might be the new POKE (meaningless) What's POPULAR Right Now on Pinterest

Category: pinterest,social media,social media marketing — jmacofearth @ 12:47 pm

Pinterest pop quiz: Do you like pictures of cute kitties, dresses, shoes, and jewelry?

Screen Shot 2012 02 21 at 12.15.21 PM PIN might be the new POKE (meaningless) Whats POPULAR Right Now on Pinterest

Click to see what's "popular" right now

What's popular on Pinterest right now might bore you to tears. Jewelry, dog and cat pics, fashion and kitchen ideas. Seriously? At noon on a Tuesday? It's like a soap opera. Lot's of people like them, lots of people watch them, most people won't admit to watching them and then still watch them. But I'm not one of those folks.

Okay so Pinterest is not for me, not to my tastes at the moment. But does that mean I have to leave Pinterest to the CuteOverload people and pictures of girls in little black dresses and high-heeled shoes? Fat chance.

The whining has already begun. "Leave Pinterest alone." And I can tell you the marketers are poised to invade in a big way. When HUBSPOT, the online marketing cheerleading squad publishes an eBook today called: How to use Pinterest for Business, I think the jig is up. The mass marketers, the spammers, the con-folks, the make a million dollars using Pinterest hawkers are coming.

Well, I hope I'm one of the good guys, trying to figure out how to provide valuable ideas about using Pinterest. Yes, business is my objective as well, but I take the WIIFY (what's in it for you) approach.

So here are a couple Pinterest ideas that should not get anyone's feathers up in a rage. (Was that a mixed metaphor?)

1. Socialize INFOGRAPHICS. (One of the most shared PINS in my Pinboard list.) They are useful when done right and they provide a very visual format for providing information. And they Pin well.

2. PIN your portfolio. Working as a consultant? A student looking for a job? Use Pinboards to show your portfolio of skills and visual work.

3. Pin things you are passionate about. If it's SHOES then you should fit right in. But just because Pinterest excels in the cute and fashionable areas does not mean you cannot use it to promote music videos you love, or great moments from YouTube that you love.

4. Begin your own categories. Pinterest starts out with a few default Pinboards that COULD set your tone. But don't let them keep you in the Pinterest Interest trap. Build your own Pinboards. And who knows, perhaps you will start a trend. Or is that Ptrend? (silent "p")

What's happening in my experience of Pinterest is a lot of Pinning and RePinning and very little clicking, or traffic generation due to a Pinned item. So people see pictures, they like pictures, and they RePin the picture to their pinboard. It's like a huge echo chamber. The same dog image that was trending yesterday will make the rounds today as thousands more PIN it for the first time under the "CUTE" or "FUNNY" catagory on their Pinboard.

And lest you think I am being cynical, I am not. I know that plenty of folks are not happy to see ANY marketers proposing uses and ideas for Pinterest. They would like to keep Pinterest like some exclusive women's club, that remains pure to the original intent. Um… Okay.

So on to the next new thing. I'm not sure Pinterest is all it's cracked up to be at this point. Their growth is phenominal, yes, but the sharing of cute cat videos is HUGE too. If Pinterest doesn't make itself useful to their users in some way, other than "cute" sharing, it might do fine in the cute cat category, but it won't have much more of a market impact than they Nyan Cat did. Sure, it's HUGE, but for/about what exactly?

My internal link stats today (2-21-12 at 1:48 pm)

Pinterest referrals: 1.

@jmacofearth (also seen on Google+: jmacofearth)
permalink: http://uber.la/2012/02/pin-less/

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Tags: abusing pinterest, growing pinterst, interesting uses for pinterest, milking pinterst, pin this, pinboard, pinterest, pinterest for business, pinterest hype, pinterest portfolio, pinterest resume, repinning, the hype of pinterest, using pinterest

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Feb 20 2012

The Pinterest Effect on Web Design and Usability: Let's Evolve, Not Devolve

Category: community building,design & user experience,pinterest,social media,social media marketing,tech opinion,tools — jmacofearth @ 2:33 pm

I was recently asked a few questions by a design magazine DOLODY about some of my Pinterest observations in my Web Design is Dead post. (Questions provided by Joanna Wiebe.)

Q: In comparison to previous methods of cataloging information (esp. visual info) online, can you please unpack how you feel Pinterest's approach – i.e., visual, random, social – is different?

A: The pros and cons of Pinterest are both in it's visual simplicity. I was amazed the first time I looked at a Pin Board at the quality of the photos. "This has to be planted material, how could consumer generated content have such great photos?"
So Pinterest is all about the image. The photo or video still represents the content. There is room for a CATEGORY (a board) and a short description. But the majority of people visiting Pinterest and PINNING and LINKING out will only react to the image.

The downside of this approach is the Pin Board is not sortable. So your navigational systems are very flat. And with the current UX the user must bounce back and forth from the Pin Board to the various Pins. I have written a post on fixing that problem with simple back and forwards arrows on the PIN page itself.

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Q: When designing in this new Pinterest world, what should a UI or UX designer keep in mind? In particular, I'm interested in hearing what will kill a novice who's not paying attention vs helping someone who is?

A: The image is everything. Can you sell the entire story with your image? Do you have a hero image that will draw in the Pinners?

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Q: What do you think Pinterest is going to do to user/visitor expectations from an interaction perspective? From a content perspective?

A: I'm hoping Pinterest won't have too much of an influence on navigation and UX design. We would be moving backwards and not evolving. The Pinterest API is coming, so soon you will be able to embed Pinboards into your site. But do you want to? Do you think giving Pinterest all of your link-love is wise? I think you will want to add PIN THIS buttons on your sites, but finding a way to not lose your traffic to PIN-happy visitors will be a challenge.

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Q: What is your opinion on the type of content being pinned on Pinterest?

A: For the most part, Pinterest has been a women's network. The Likes of Pinterest on Facebook are 97% women. And there are 2 million Likes. So Pinterest is a force to be understood. As the mainstream internet users get ON to Pinterest, the content will evolve. Today the taxonomy overlaid by Pinterest's categories is a bit rudimentary. And I would guess the SEARCH function is not used very much, yet. But for Pinterest to be of "interest" to the mainstream net user it will have to provide more features and functions. Today it is like electronic scrapbooking with other people's pictures. And it's not very social.

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Q: What might 'democratizing' visual feedback mean for bloggers and web designers alike, if anything?

A: I'm not sure what you are asking. If the PIN is a VOTE then Pinterest will have an affect as long as the buzz continues. I'm already a bit bored with it. And even bored of talking about it. I want to see what it will become, or if it will fade back into a scrapbook of shoes, skirts, and kitchen ideas.

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Q: Is there any cause for concern – or joy – about Pinterest users shaping expectations of what is beautiful / pin-worthy (in a way similar to machines in the Industrial Revolution influencing Art Deco and then the Arts & Crafts reaction to mass production)?

A: Well, there's going to be a ton of Pinterest clones. Walls of images with little or no coordinated navigation. And there will be SOCIAL Pinterest extensions as well. Today it's a PIN and POST network. Tomorrow, I'm betting the PINS and your friend's PINS will become more connected, more threaded. It's not social today, but I'm sure someone is working on that.

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Q: Did Pinterest kill web design as we know it? If you think so, please explain why. If you think not, please explain why.

A: Web design as we used to know it has been dead for awhile. I think the first wave of destruction was blogs and the ease of use of WordPress and the free template. Certainly grabbing your information from RSS-feeds, as I do, rather than from the site itself has gone a long way towards taking the "design" out of the information for me.

Pinterest is again going to challenge the designers of the world when new clients arrive and ask, "Can you make it like Pinterest?" The designer's question needs to be, "What about Pinterest do you like? What things do we need to change?" And the most important question of all, from a design AND business angle, "What is the goal of your site?"

The User-Interface on Pinterest is pretty simple. See a picture, click on a picture, click BACK, and repeat. After a while that gets quite tedious. And that's were designers can come back in and make a better Pinterest-like site.

The visual is ever more important today, but the navigation is key to the usability of the site. Without navigation and organization, Pinterest is merely pretty pictures. And what is the user goal of that model?

@jmacofearth (also seen on Google+: jmacofearth)
permalink: http://uber.la/2012/02/pinterest-design/

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