We’ve all been there: sitting at our desk trying to find a way to present boring information in a way that won’t cause everyone’s eyes to glaze over. And truly, these kinds of presentations can be a little uninteresting. Not-so-thrilling topics are usually the most important ones, however, so you want to make sure that you’re conveying the information in a way that will be most easily transmitted to your audience. In this article, we’ll give you a few tips to making engaging infographics about topics that may be...a little less engaging.

Know Your Audience 

Are you talking to employees and coworkers, clients and prospects, or to the marketplace as a whole? Regardless of the answer, you need to know a little bit about who these people are, how they communicate and learn, and what they need to know. For example, let’s say that you’re about to give a presentation to a group of college basketball players about NCAA student-athlete insurance programs. This information is vital, but it's doubtful that any player watching the presentation went into college basketball to hear about the fantastic insurance options. Liven things up by putting the overview of information in an infographic styled in an NBA theme. While this may sound a little childish, what you're doing is appealing to your audience’s passion and driving an association, while presenting information that may fall outside their experience in a simplified and easy-to-digest manner.

Be Visually Appealing 

This one seems like a no-brainer on the surface, but what does “visual appeal” actually entail? Making infographics complex and intricate might seem like the best way to get attention, but that’s actually a good way to lose your audience’s interest. Limit your color scheme to between four and five colors. Stick to one consistent style for images and graphics for continuity, and remember that white space can serve to garner attention by establishing contrast and drawing focus. Lastly, limit your font usage to two different fonts, tops. Too many fonts are unnecessary and not aesthetically appealing; the eye likes consistency.

Make your Text Digestible 

If you’ve ever sat through a poorly-made PowerPoint presentation, you know that there is nothing more mind-numbing than looking at an entire block of text that fills the whole page. What’s worse is than having someone simply read that giant block of text. One of the most important tips for creating engaging infographics is to make text digestible -- that is, control the amount of information you include in the infographic. Lean on keywords and broad terms, even introduce questions that your audience can or will be able to answer. In this way, you not only encourage engagement and relay some facts, you inspire a kind of thought that doesn't even need an entire speech to drive a point.

Make the Size Manageable, or Make More Than One Infographic 

If you have an infographic that has a lot of statistics, numbers, data, and other information that can’t be represented through text and would work better just by seeing the number itself, don’t make the infographic too long or wide. Make the size manageable; it should only take the eye a few seconds to scan over it. If you have information that is going to extend that time period, make a second infographic (the more the merrier, as the saying goes). Otherwise, you risk losing your viewer’s focus because they’re too busy trying to decipher the graphic and not listening to what you have to say about it. After all, the purpose of the infographic is to make all of that extra exposition unnecessary for the purpose of understanding your presentation.

For more information visit Kreativa, an online marketing community where top marketing agencies and talents discuss the ins and outs of infographics, design, marketing, and more.