Tips for Creating Interactive Visualizations for Your Site
How to create an interactive visualization for a website? What are the best tools to use for interactive visualization? How will visualization help in the development of your resource? Why are interactive visuals interesting for the site visitor? How to create an interactive chart in HTML? Site owners ask these and other questions on the Internet.
Sometimes it can be difficult to quickly and effectively communicate your thoughts and ideas to a reader or potential client of your business. Often the audience does not have sufficient knowledge to perceive and understand numerical information easily. According to statistics, 65% of people remember information better through pictures, diagrams, graphs, etc. There is a solution—to visualize the data. Interactive visualization is the most effective way to present complex information. It allows people to interact more deeply with data to evaluate different situations and scenarios. Research confirms that even cursory access to visual information will enable you to remember it after a few days in 90% of cases.
John Doe has been working in interactive visualization for over five years. He develops information visualization software, has a background in artificial intelligence, and knows exactly how to captivate your website visitors. Having experience in the field allows him to tell you about all the features of data visualization. It will also help you choose the most appropriate visual presentation for your content.
Don’t forget that visual content is just beautiful. It will be a good addition to your site; it will look appropriate on a blog, an analytical portal, and a regular news site.
You will learn why to visualize data and what visualization principles exist already. The article also provides practical recommendations for using interactive visualization on your site. It is better to work with visualization on a computer; if you are experiencing freezes on your Mac, you should clean it up and disable all extraneous peripherals. Clean My Mac X is an excellent way to keep your computer running correctly. This way, you will not face any problems creating visual content on your site.
Why Do We Need to Visualize Information?
There are several main reasons you should choose to visualize information on the site. Let’s take a closer look at each of them:
- Drive traffic to the site. As mentioned above, a person remembers and perceives information better in graphical form. Moreover, looking at pictures and looking for the relationship between them is a more interesting and exciting activity than reading plain text. As a result, due to visual information, you can increase the time a person spends on the site and make him involved and loyal to your company.
- A quick analysis of specific data and convenient presentation of statistics and reports. Most often, visualization is explicitly used to represent any numerical data. For example, this is how you can talk about the company’s profit during the year. It will be much easier for the viewer to conclude logically by looking at the graph than by reading numerous incomprehensible numbers.
- A simple explanation of complex things and phenomena. Due to visual data, it is easy to replace large chunks of cumbersome text. Pictures help the reader better establish relationships between your site’s blocks.
Furthermore, do not forget that visual content is just beautiful. It will be an excellent addition to your site; it will look appropriate on a blog, an analytical portal, and a regular news site.
What Are the Basic Principles of Visualization?
Not every visualization will work well on your site. There are rules to be followed. We suggest you learn the four basic principles of visualizing content on the site.
- Clarity of the information presented. Reports and articles attract people, firstly, with history. This information consists of numbers, dates, and names in graphs, charts, and other visual content. There is no need to place all the data at your disposal on one chart. Do not overload the diagrams with unnecessary information. Let there be less data on your chart, but all of them will be relevant, understandable, and verified for the reader.
- No visual noise. Make sure that your interactive visualizations have a minimum of extraneous details. Dark and heavy grid lines, many icons and labels, numerous labels, shadows, and changing gradients will all overload the visual content.
- Graph and text must be one. A standard option is when the text has nothing to do with a graph, image, diagram, or other visual content. Text and graphics should complement each other.
- Graphically display information that can be read immediately. The human brain works in such a way that it first notices and determines the information it understands. As a result, a person first reads the data he knows and builds a complete picture based on it. This is important to consider when working with visual data.
8 Ways To Visualize Content on a Website
There are several ways to present content on a website visually. The specific method is selected depending on the type of your resource, page loading features, and other factors. It is essential not to forget about website optimization. The page loading speed will depend on the browser type, the Internet connection speed, and the content amount. If you post numerous high-res images and videos, pages will take a few minutes to load. This will not please your site visitors or search engines.
And now, let’s talk about visualization methods that will help your site.
1. Images
Photos and pictures on the site help to evoke certain emotions in the visitor and potential client. With their help, you can tell about a particular product and service visually. According to statistics, buyers trust sellers who post photos of their products.
For this type of visual content, quality and uniqueness are essential. If you place fuzzy and blurry images on your site, the level of trust from the audience will decrease significantly. Moreover, such visualization and search robots will not like it.
The selected images must fit into the overall concept of your site. It would be best if you made sure that the pictures do not only the theme of the page but also correspond to the overall color scheme of the resource. The harmony of all elements will have a positive impact on site traffic.
Using images for visualization has several advantages:
- Virtually no increase in page loading speed;
- Able to evoke certain emotions in the visitor and help him make the final decision about your product or service;
- You can choose suitable images in several ways—download for free or for free on stocks, or take independent photos.
The disadvantage of images is that free images can be repeated on other sites, and for high-quality self-made photos, it is often necessary to hire a professional photographer.
Images are a powerful tool for conveying information about your product to the consumer. The site visitor can see what exactly you are ready to offer him. Typically, whole pieces of text can be replaced with pictures.
2. Video
Another option for visualizing content on a website is video. The same rule applies here with images — it is better to see once than read. The video will fulfill its role, even if it visually duplicates information from your text. So, you can significantly increase your audience reach — someone will read your article and immediately go to watch the video.
Do not shoot too long videos, with a high probability that only a few will watch them. The video should be catchy and memorable. Videos shot in the format of instructions for use, reviews, and stories about the benefits and features of specific products and services are best suited. Sometimes a 30-second video can convey much more to the consumer than using plain text.
Advantages:
- Video will appeal to all visitors to your site — regardless of age and social status;
- Videos instantly attract attention;
- Such content helps to simplify complex topics as much as possible;
- A great way to establish an emotional connection with a client.
Disadvantages:
- Video affects page loading speed;
- Content may not display correctly on mobile devices;
- Difficulty focusing on a “call to action”.
Video works great for simplifying complex texts on your site. At the same time, it is essential to ensure that it does not significantly increase the page load time. Moreover, do not post videos that are too long—no one will watch them.
Additionally, if you add audio to video to enhance the user's experience and make the visualization more engaging.
3. Quotes
Quotes on the site are an elementary but effective way to make the tedious and complex text more “alive”. And due to quoting, you can make the content compelling and believable. For best effect, frame the quote as a picture to focus the reader on a specific part of your article.
A quote in the form of a picture solves two problems at once. This is how you present quality and authoritative text to readers and draw the reader’s attention to another topic from which the quote was used.
Advantages of quotes on websites:
- An excellent way to give content credibility and believability;
- Anyone can do this visualization; no knowledge of graphic design and a powerful computer is required.
Cons:
- It can be challenging to find a quote that will fit the topic of your article.
Quotations help draw the reader’s attention to a particular part of the text. You can also use them to link to other content on your site.
4. Infographics
Infographics are a unique visual way of presenting content. Graphs, diagrams, and charts help the reader understand facts about events, phenomena, processes, etc. In addition to visual graphic elements, infographics also abound with text.
Infographics are often compared to storytelling—there is a beginning, body, and conclusion. Thanks to such visualization, it is easy to convey factual findings to the reader. Infographics can typically act as a separate element—if done thoroughly and soundly, no additional textual information will be required.
Advantages:
- The ability to explain complex information to the reader in a way that is easy to understand;
- You can do without the accompanying text;
- Everything is evident and understandable without additional explanations.
Cons:
- It requires careful thought through infographics so that after reading them, the client will find answers to all his questions.
Infographics help draw attention to a specific issue. It will captivate the reader and keep him on your site for a long time.
5. Call-to-action buttons
Another visualization option for your site. At the same time, it performs several functions at once. The primary purpose of the call button is to provoke a person to perform specific actions on your site (order a product, contact support, leave a request, etc.). Moreover, using these buttons, you can focus on the desired section of your text. With a graphic element, you also dilute the text content.
Directly on the button, you can place short information that may be interesting or important to the consumer.
Advantages:
- No special skills are required to create and post on the site;
- Performs numerous functions at once;
- Highlights essential blocks of text well.
Disadvantages:
- This type of visualization is not suitable for sites where you do not offer products or services to customers.
A call-to-action button will help you summarize everything in the article. And also it pushes the reader to commit one or another action.
6. Charts
Graphs fall into the same category. As mentioned above, infographics act as independent content and may not be supplemented by accompanying text. With graphs and charts, everything is the opposite — they complement the text.
Thanks to this visual content, it is possible to present some complex data understandably. For example, you want to talk about the growth in popularity of your product. Simple numbers will be difficult to compare to understand the current dynamics mentally. But by the development of the bars in the chart, users will quickly draw their conclusions.
Advantages:
- Can be compiled in a regular text editor;
- Most programs for charts and graphs require only data entry; everything is visualized automatically.
Cons:
- This visualization method is not suitable for every article. It will be more appropriate in texts that mention statistical, mathematical, and other data.
A diagram can help you easily explain numerical information to the reader. The schedule is more important than the load. It is better to create several charts than to fit diverse data on one chart.
7. Maps
If you are talking about any object located in a particular area, maps will help you immensely. With their help, you can convey to the reader information about the dependence of the thing on geographical indicators, location, etc.
Cartograms can also be included in this category. These are maps on which the intensity of specific indicators is usually indicated. For example, you can show how often an artist performs in a particular city or country using a cartogram. With this kind of visualization, you can also track the spread of something on the map.
Advantages:
- There will be no problems with finding a map of the desired area;
- It is easy to convey to the reader which region is being discussed in the article.
Cons:
- If you go to create a cartogram for your site, you will have to work with a graphics editor or other software. For programs to work on your computer without freezing, try closing unnecessary processes.
8. Typography
The use of typography helps you beautify the text and present complex information in an understandable way. For visual typographic content to look attractive and practical on your site, follow these rules:
- Achieve a harmonious combination of colors with the site’s background and other design elements. It is best to wish for inscriptions in contrasting colors.
- Choose the correct position and size for your typography. It’s a separate element in your text; it doesn’t have to be big enough or placed in an unusual place. This is how the typography draws attention to itself.
- Express essential thoughts. Thanks to typography, it is best to express the critical idea of your text and make out a quote or other information. Typography is something that should immediately catch your reader’s eye.
Benefits are an excellent way to grab attention and present complex information understandably. Cons—You need to follow specific rules to improve the effectiveness of typography.
Properly selected composition, font, and color are essential to successful typography. If you do not have sufficient graphic design skills, it is better to involve a third-party specialist in this process.
TOP 5 Recommendations for Creating Interactive Visualizations for the Site
We encourage you to read our tips for making your website look professional and people-centric. These tips will help improve your skills and avoid mistakes when creating the visual part of the site.
Decide On Working Tools
Choose the most convenient programming languages and programs that will help you do interactive visualization. The universal tool is p5.js. The script allows you to display many options for displaying information—from static pictures to animations and interactive diagrams. Furthermore, if you often use your computer, remember to use the Clean My Mac X service to keep your device in order.
Divide the Project into Goals
Try to complete only some tasks in one working day. The best option is to divide the project into small goals that you will deal with daily. So, by performing simple tasks, you can quickly get closer to your desired destination. In addition, you will get more opportunities for experimentation and insure yourself against mistakes that may affect the final result of the work.
Work With Only the Information That Inspires You
When creating interactive visualizations, it’s essential to use only the data that interests you. This way, you can keep your interest in the project and make every effort to make it perfect.
Don’t Over-Complicate the Project
In many projects where information dominates, the way it is displayed fades into the background. If your site belongs to such resources, you should create simple animations and compositions. Leave important information in the first place, so web portal visitors can understand the essence. After all, we must not forget that people are visual creatures. Always focus on the perception of information.
Nothing is Perfect
We live in an imperfect world. Any data, be it statistics, coincidences, or charts, can have errors. Sometimes in the work process, you will meet something unusual and unexpected. Accept it, and still invest your best efforts to ensure that the project turns out to be of high quality.
Conclusion
We hope our article helped you understand the value of using graphic visualization on your website. Such elements can attract the attention of the reader, as well as simplify the perception of the text. At the same time, it is essential not to overload the site with too many elements. If you’re experiencing constant freezes on your Mac, don’t forget to clean up.
