Infographic design website:
https://infogram.com/are-you-prone-to-acl-injuries-1ho16vollgz374n?live
Researching this project was a new and challenging experience. I learned to visualize my ideas in an infographic. A good visualization depends on your target audience, concept, and goals. In my infographic, my goal was to educate a general audience on ACL injuries. As my goal was to inform the audience, it led me to decide to portray a more formal format to present the data. A formal infographic would deviate from funky fonts and colorful writing. Instead, the audience wants a compelling narrative with clearly structured data. A compelling narrative allows the reader to comprehend the information presented easily. I also learned to decide the language used and the complexity data shown. If your target audience is professors, you could add more complex ideas and data than a general audience. I had a general target audience, which caused me to keep my information simple.
Systematically, we had to create a quantifiable concept and had journal entries or surveys to provide data. My professor inspired me to create an infographic on my recent ACL injury. I came up with various ideas for an infographic that answers questions, such as what causes ACL injuries or what are the most common injuries. These questions may be answered by listing out numerous factors contributing to ACL injuries or listing out different types of injuries. However, these factors are not quantifiable. Therefore, I had to think about whether my idea or concept was quantifiable by academic articles or through surveys. I learned how to produce measurable questions that could answer or relate to my idea. Instead, I came up with the following questions: Which sports have the highest percentage of ACL injuries, and Is there a percentage difference in ACL injuries between males and females? These questions provided quantifiable answers that are applicable to the infographic.
It was a challenging task researching my concept of ACL injuries on the Longwood Library website. I learned how to source creditable data from the online library. I searched for different keywords linked to my concept. Many articles came up, which were irrelevant to my concept. However, only a selected few academic journals applied to my idea. I learned that in researching, there is no textbook method for finding the right information. It requires you to think creatively, search for different keywords combined or separately, and keep trying. It is very different from Google as the best article may not be on the first or second webpage.
Overall, I thought my infographic was successful, and I learned many new skills useful for my future at college.