You need to create and display visualizations that grab the attention of each visitor at the very first glance of any landing page of your website. You can use whiteboards and diagrams to convert complex concepts into easy-to-understand and visually appealing infographics.
You should try out the following websites and tools that will enable you to create stunning infographics as well as data visualizations to communicate effectively with your audience. Infogr.am is a free online tool that has excellent themes and an easy-to-use interface that can help you come up with simple infographics. You can use your data to create a wide range of graphs from 31 chart options such as scatter charts, radial bar graphs, map charts, and bubble graphs. You can create an infographic and embed it on the chosen website while publishing it on the infogr.am website. In addition, you can also include your own chosen images and videos in your infographics.
Another free web based infographics tool is Easel.ly that does not allow you to create graphs, but can be useful for storytelling and for conceptualizing visualizations. With several themes that support flow-charts, comparison/relationship graphing, and maps and an excellent interface, you can easily come up with stunning designs on your own. You can upload chosen images for free and download web quality JPG versions with ease.
Piktochart.com is another decent destination that offers 6 free themes along with several paid ones to help you create impressive visualizations. You can engage in a lot of customization as well as create simple charts with CSV or manual entries. You can also export them to print as well as web quality JPG and PNG.
Visual.ly is another free tool that can integrate data from Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking websites to create excellent visualizations. You can come up with Twitter account showdowns and Venn diagrams, among others to impress viewers. In addition, this website also features a marketplace to help you locate professional infographics designers.
Tableausoftware.com is not an online tool and so needs to be downloaded before you can begin using it. However, it is free, is only for Windows, and helps create fantastic data visualizations. You merely need to upload your spreadsheet or CSV and make a wide range of visualizations such as heat maps, Venn diagrams as well as several types of charts and graphs.
In addition to several paid and free infographics and visualization tools, you can also use several diagram and wireframing tools to come up with impressive diagrams and wireframes. Balsamiq.com is one such tool for simple diagrams for internet as well as mobile interfaces. You can use the free web-demo version for really simple needs or opt for the paid version for bigger needs.
Another really great wireframing tool is OmniGraffle from Omnigroup.com. However, this tool only works for Mac and iPad. This paid tool does offer free stencils that can be downloaded and can be used for home and office layouts, architectural diagrams as well as web and mobile interfaces. This tool is great for infographics, but not so great for data visualization and offers a host of customizable options.
Another great communication avenue can be provided by whiteboard videos. This tool is an inexpensive and impressive method of putting across your ideas and can be used for internal meetings as well. You can convert creative ideas and use various visualization techniques to come up with stunning videos with the help of competent illustration artists that transform your idea or story into a great video. You can hire a complete team of experts by visiting Cognitivemedia.co.uk or Explanimate.com.au.
Yet another visualization tool that helps you make a visual presentation next to your slides or text is one offered by Present.me. You can record yourself speaking on one side of the screen while the other displays your slides. This is a paid tool that offers a free trial and is a good tool for making remote presentations.
Last, but not the least is TimelineJS from Timeline.verito.co that extracts media from different sources to create Timelines that are supported by YouTube, Twitter, Vimeo, Google Maps, SoundCloud, Wikipedia, and many more. You can visually explain several themes such as inception and growth of your company or that of your clients, major events in your client’s business history, etc.
Before you begin using one or more of the above infographics and other visualization tools, it would be wise to visit several sites that use them and view their creations. You need to find and use a tool that is suitable for your business, your products, and your target audience. You should also get feedback from your final visualization or video before releasing it over the internet.
A little bit of trial and error will certainly help you to extract the best out of the above free and paid visualization tools for impressive and fruitful communication with your target audience.
