[NEW]How Do Infographics Perform in a Mobile-First Strategy?

Infographics: those visual, easy to digest pieces of graphic content that you’ve found all over the web are more popular than ever. Usually seen in a simple JPG or PNG format, they can be also animated or interactive but are very often static, meaning users must pinch the screen to view them on certain types of devices. So how do they perform in a modern digital strategy?

The digital world is now mobile-first, meaning content must be optimized for mobile viewing on any device, whether it’s a smartphone, tablet or desktop. Websites must ensure that their content is viewable, or search engines will start to rank them below their mobile-friendly competitors.

How do infographics perform? The argument for a mobile-first digital strategy is obvious; people have been moving away from their desktops for years, and the trend is steadily increasing. Mobile viewing of web content has now surged ahead of desktop, in fact, 70% of internet use is now on a mobile device. A recent consumption forecast suggested that the use of a desktop for internet users fell by almost 16% this year.

This trend is happening all over the world. For example, the use of devices other than desktops has risen by 63% in China, with internet users hitting the 620 million mark at the end of last year. Mobile-first is big business, and an essential part of any contemporary media strategy. If your website is not mobile-friendly, it will fall behind.

In digital landscapes, there is also an inherent need to predict future trends in the use of products and websites, so a mobile-first strategy has been a keystone metric for some time now. People are on the move due to the many devices available now and they want their information served wherever they go.

So how does this play out for different types of content - visual, written, video, graphic (including infographics) - and what does “optimized for mobile” really mean? There are several terms being now being used, including mobile friendly, mobile optimized and responsive design. These all share similar elements but are distinct from each other. As web design advances, responsive design has emerged as the dominant way of presenting a website that is entirely flexible, regardless of what device you are using.

Instead of just detecting a specific browser type of device, a responsive design will automatically change its parameters to match the screen size available. This is done with automatic reformatting of content without the user having to do anything.

The “problem” when it comes infographics is that often they render as images do; they will be automatically resized with a responsive website design meaning that text and images may be too small to be read when viewed on a small screen such as a smartphone. But is this really an issue?