Ever wonder what makes an infographic successful? Why do some infographics accumulate more than 1 million views and others, barely 100?

We’ve talked about viral infographics before, from a creative process standpoint: the story, data and design of an infographic all play a role in whether it will appeal to the masses, as does the way it is promoted.

But what does viral content have in common? There are more than 16,000 graphics and visualizations on Visual.ly, so comprehensive analysis would take some time. A good place to start is at the very top. Looking at the top 30 pieces of content on the site should yield some clues that will guide more analysis in the future.

The primary statistic used is unique pageviews accumulated since the Visual.ly website launched in July 2011. Each of the top 30 graphics received more... keep reading

We live in an intensely digital world, and almost all of the visualizations and data we encounter are created or recorded by a computer. Still, there are devices that collect and “visualize” parts of the world around us. They turn things that are ordinarily invisible (electricity, magnetism, pressure, time) into things we can see,... keep reading

Infographics and data visualization are more popular than ever these days, and on the flip side of this trend is the fact that for each amazing piece that gets published, there is at least one that… well, should never have seen the light of day. Bad data visualizations can be misleading, confusing — or... keep reading