An association analysis between content topic and appeal type of infographics

Abstract

Infographics become viral on the internet and social media, offering people visual information in an easy way to consume and share. The design, story, and data all play an important role in infographic. However, the latter two were less explored than the first one. Hence, this study conducted an association analysis between the two variables, “content topic” and “appeal type” from the infographics which received more than 10000 page views on Visual.ly. The study comprised the two phrases. Phase 1 aimed to classify the categories for both the two variables by card sorting and cluster analysis. Next, association analyses were performed in phase 2 to discover the connections between the two important factors of infographics. The results were as follows. (1) The content type was divided into the four categories: “statistical data”, “original insight”, “life issues” and “development progress”. (2) Web infographics adopting “rational appeal” were more than those adopting “emotional appeal”. (3) A significant association did exist between content type and appeal type. Rational appeal was usually used with the contents of statistical data, and emotional appeal was usually applied in the topics of development progress and life issues. Overall, the findings could serve as a foundation for further studies in infographic, and enable designers to enhance users’ experience in visual communication.