Design is playing an increasing role in value creation for businesses. The driving factor of this phenomenon could be as simple as human natural preference for beauty. Design allows companies to ward off commoditization. It enables them to differentiate their products from competitors. In fact, with great design you can create wonderful customer experience.
[blockquote]It’s no accident that many of the world’s top brands are also design leaders.”
– Bloomberg BusinessWeek [/blockquote]
Misconceptions About Design
[blockquote]The biggest misconception the public has about design is that it is mostly about aesthetics – that things looking nice either for superficial reasons of fashion or to make hard-nosed business people add 30 per cent to the price. Design is much more than skin-deep and has a much more complex ways in which it affects us and makes value.
– John Mathers, chief executive, Design Council [/blockquote]
Many people think that design is simply visual beautification. It is true that making things beautiful is significant. However, design plays a much bigger role in everyday things.
Besides the design of products, graphics and interactions, design plays an important role in structuring complex information in an efficient and effective way (graphic design simply plays a supportive role). And almost all business communication means can be redesigned according to information design principles.
Diving into the complexities of underlying processes of how things are used or comprehended (be it an Apple OS or a textbook for college students), businesses slowly discover the importance of INFORMATION DESIGN.
Why Information Design Matters
Without a doubt, a typical company or department report is rather comprehensive and complex. This can deter people from wanting to read it. Or people get lost in the mountains of words and unable to grasp the important facts. Your annual report doesn’t need to be dull and tedious. Information and data can be visualized for effect, making it easier to consume.
Small improvements like changing table or data into charts and graphs (data visualization) can make significant improvements to your report effectiveness. You can also think big and change the entire format, like INFOGRAPHICS.
How Infographics Can Help Your Business
Simplify communication and clarify messages
Let’s be honest, most people will turn away when they see pages and pages of words. The phrases you will constantly hear are “I hated reading it, there’s too many words!” or “I see these and I fall asleep” or “What are they trying to say actually?”
To paint the picture better for you, consider the following comparison:
Image credit: myturnstone.com
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Compelling and attractive
Information overload is a real problem in today’s world. Information design is the key to an entry barrier. Effectively designed information invites readerships.
You can tell clearly which of the following two will make you read:
Image credits: thecreativedork.com (left) / www.behance.net (right)
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Answer specific business questions
Entering a business pitch, the question on top of your audience’s head is definitely “Why should I root for you?” Besides delivering it in your speech, a good visual presentation helps to bring your point home.
Consider the following pitch deck:
PinMyPet from 500 Startups
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Facilitate management decision-making
Often times, making a business decision needs to be fast. Hence, tons of reports that are all words and no key data obvious to the eye simply don’t work. With effective information design, your reports can make key data apparent.
Visual data that shows
- the growth or a new product, or
- the number of unique visits after a marketing campaign, or
- the population of your target audience in various social network channels,
provide you an instantaneous key information that are easy to interpret and enable you to make decisions fast and accurately.
Image credit: www.gravesadvertising.com
[tweet “Use infographics to make business decisions”]
Conclusion
Design is more than just aesthetic. It creates value for businesses. Business communication should leverage the eminence of information design. Infographic is great to break down big numbers or a large chunk of data into coherent and eloquent content, yet concurrently tells the “big picture”.
Infographics can help business in
- Simplifying communication and clarifying messages
- Making communication materials compelling and attractive
- Answering specific business questions
- Facilitating management decision-making
Here are a few suggested areas to apply infographics in your company:
- Reporting: Research results, demographics, key performance metrics, annual reports
- Guidelines or demos: How-to infographics that takes you through processes step-by-step
- Employee report: Profile-type infographics
- Sales kit: pitch decks à la infographics with visual support like graphics, tables, charts, workflow, and others
Yes, it’s that easy. Start making beautiful visuals using Piktochart
