In a recent poll involving me alone, infographics were determined to be ridiculous creations. The main reason cited was that they do not help information retention.
I have read a lot of silly infographics in my time. Stared at them. Admired the colours and the various shapes. Even vacantly drooled on the table a little. But I can't remember what a single one was about, and I'm going to blame the infographics.
They're a reflection of the mentality of catering for the lowest common denominator; aiming at the broadest audience of perusers, who click, glance, and move on, rather than those who read with the intention of learning or remembering. The whole development process is aimed at making information palatable, rather than memorable.
"Jimmy is scared of proper information, so lets give Jimmy a picture he can look at".
Jimmy isn't going to learn anything extra from the picture than he would have from a graph. All an infographic will do is obfuscate the information for anyone who stood a chance.
In summary, know whether you're trying to communicate or entertain.
Edit:
Since writing this, I've relaxed somewhat on what I vehemently opined. I now believe that infographics can be good, but that 95% of those I have seen were poorly designed. As an example, this infographic from The Huffington Post is touted as good, and is clearly a mess.
I'd note also that Wired's top 13 infographics of 2013 are all either maps or well labelled charts.
The difference appears to be that well organised graphs which don't use traditional axes work, but jumbling random facts into a long picture does not.
