The Dynamics of Infographics: Transforming Tabular Data into an Interactive Story

Abstract

Election campaigns can be heated, and sometimes controversial, where statements candidates make are dissected, analyzed, and scrutinized by news media, talk shows, publications, and now social media. The 2016 election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton was no different. Trump’s combustible use of Twitter as then-candidate and nowpresident continues to make headlines, fueling barrages of re-tweets, replies, memes, and so on. This thesis project examines a tweet Donald Trump made about winning the 2016 election in a landslide and uses official election results published by the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to debunk that claim in an interactive infographic created in Tableau. This paper examines infographic design and highlights types of infographics, infographics and cognition, interactivity in infographics, and good design principles. This paper then walks through the construction of the interactive infographic in Tableau while noting the design process used and principles applied. An evaluation of Tableau as a visual design tool is also provided.