Assessing Attitudes Toward Content and Design in Alibaba’s Dry Goods Business Infographics

Abstract

Alibaba’s Graphic Media (GM) is the first and only Internet content source that uses infographics to educate Chinese e-commerce merchants. This study investigates target audiences’ attitudes toward GM infographics. Two focus groups perceived GM as a practical information source that aided them in decision making and daily business operations. They preferred viewing graphics to texts and particularly favored statistical graphics. They also identified issues with viewing GM infographics on mobile devices. Based on the study’s findings, the author proposes three areas that communicators can address when designing infographics in similar contexts: content, usability, and overall visual appeal.

Keywords

visual communication business communication e-commerce information visualization information design

Anyone designing information for the Chinese Internet audience must think in terms of dry goods nowadays. The demand for dry goods is shared by a large community of advanced Internet users who are fed up with contents that are repeatedly copied onto Web sites and filled with circular and indirect rhetoric. Instead of overly decorative and superfluous discourses, these users want practical, engaging, and easy-to-grasp bits of knowledge and information, or dry goods. The term dry goods (gan huo), originally denoting dehydrated food items, was first used to mean practical discourses by Hu Jintao, former general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and president of China. During the drafting stage of the Communist Party of China Central Committee’s Proposal for Formulating the 12th Five-Year Program for China’s Economic and Social Development (2011–2015), Hu pointed out that the proposal should be thoughtful and strategic and that the specific measures for development should contain “dry goods” (“Hu Jintao’s ‘Dry Goods’ Talks,” 2010, translated from Chinese). Simple and endearing to the Chinese people, Hu’s use of the term dry goods contested a tradition of composing governmental documents with theories, principles, and wordplays rather than concrete strategies and feasible action plans.

About a year after Hu’s comment, the term emerged again—this time during the 2011 China Internet Conference held in Beijing. On the third day of the conference, the audience began to air their dissatisfaction with some presenters who turned their talks into speeches publicizing their companies. Audience members started to post on Tencent Weibo, the de facto official microblog platform for conference attendees, with the phrase demanding dry goods (qiu gan huo) on it. The phrase, which soon became the conference buzz phrase, was put on an electronic post-it image for the attendees to share. Since then, it became a common quest shared by Internet audiences seeking useful information online. Perhaps it is not incidental that such a demand has become urgent in an age of information overload, when our attention is bombarded by an ever-increasing amount of information from different sources. By asking for dry goods, people are demanding value for their time and attention.

In answering such a request, many Chinese Internet content providers claim to offer dry goods. One such provider is Alibaba Group, China’s biggest e-commerce company. Alibaba’s business covers online retail and wholesale marketplaces, online banking, and express delivery services. In 2013, transactions on its three major online marketplaces totaled $248 billion, more than those of eBay and Amazon combined (“Defining Alibaba,” 2014). In September 2014, Alibaba raised $21.8 billion in its initial public stock offering (IPO) on the New York Stock Exchange, making it the biggest IPO in U.S. history. Millions of merchants sell on its online retail and wholesale portals (Taobao.com, Tmall.com, and Alibaba.com), and Alibaba is committed to helping these merchants succeed and grow. In 2013, as part of its effort to educate its affiliated merchants, Alibaba launched an infographic section, Graphic Media (GM), on its domestic media Web site. GM has since published over 600 infographics, covering topics in marketing, operations, consumer relationships, logistics, social media, and financing, labeling them all as Dry Goods Infographics (gan huo xin xi tu).

Aimed at providing its users with business tips and e-commerce news in easy-to-understand graphics, GM is the first and currently the only Internet content resource that uses mainly visual strategies to educate a specific audience—Chinese e-commerce merchants. The working days of GM’s target audience normally revolve around the retailing cycle—stocking, making sales, shipping, and taking care of customer inquiries. Merchants have limited time to spend on reading and learning, and yet they need information that will help them explore tips and trends in sales and marketing. GM was created to meet this need by providing a new reading experience for its audiences, as is claimed by its slogan One Infographic a Day! Taking You Through a Reading Revolution! (translated from Chinese).

But in order to be considered dry goods, these infographics must be perceived by their intended audiences as having practical value. Even though Alibaba has been diligent in its production of infographics on GM, it has not examined whether its target audiences consider these infographics as dry goods. In general, little empirical research has been done to find out how people perceive the effectiveness of infographics as a method of visual communication. Many have claimed that infographics, and visualized information in general, have great potential for helping viewers to understand and retain information (e.g., Borkin et al., 2013; Cairo, 2013; Krum, 2014; Lankow, Ritchie, & Crooks, 2012; Pousman, Stasko, & Mateas, 2007; Smiciklas, 2012). But these claims are based on early research confirming the superiority of visual–pictorial perception (e.g., Nickerson, 1965; Rock & Engelstein, 1959; Shepard, 1967; Standing, Conezio, & Haber, 1970) and not on research carried out on infographics specifically (except for Borkin et al., 2013, who made the claim based on their own empirical testing).

Although much scholarship has examined international oral and written business communication, few studies have looked at how visuals play a role in international business communication. This study seeks to address these gaps in scholarship by empirically investigating the Chinese target audiences’ attitudes toward GM infographics. In particular, this study seeks to answer these three research questions:

Research Question 1: In what ways do participants find GM infographics to be useful?

Research Question 2: In what ways does the visual design of these infographics facilitate or hinder participants’ viewing experience?

Research Question 3: What areas of change do participants hope to see in GM infographics?

To obtain answers to these questions, I conducted two focus group discussions with Taobao.com (Alibaba’s largest online marketplace) merchants. The focus groups revealed that these participants perceived GM infographics as important sources of their business intelligence, aiding them in decision making and day-to-day business operations. When viewing these infographics, the participants preferred graphics to texts and particularly favored statistical graphics. In addition, they accessed these infographics exclusively on smartphones and found that not all GM infographics were suited for viewing on mobile devices. Based on the findings, I propose three areas that communicators can address when designing infographics in similar contexts: content (strengthening statistical graphic design), usability (designing for mobile viewing), and overall visual appeal (creating coherent design style).

Findings from this study will directly help Alibaba’s infographic designers see what their audiences value and hope to see improved in GM infographics. The designers can then adjust their strategies to meet these needs. Regardless of languages and geographical locations, designers from other countries can learn what to pay attention to while creating visual contents in similar contexts and with similar objectives, that is, to create content marketing business infographics that inform consumers and promote the company or organization.

But most important, this study shows that the commonly held notion that the Chinese communication style is indirect and implicit does not apply to the visual medium of infographics, nor is it preferred by Chinese Internet audiences at large. Audiences come to view infographics expecting direct, explicit, and ready-to-use messages. The study results will remind communicators and designers that in addition to being equipped with knowledge of different communication styles, they must be cognizant of the local cultural and economic expectations of their target audiences.

Before presenting my research, I delineate the changing impressions on Chinese business communication preferences. Then I survey the different definitions of infographics that I build on to best summarize the characteristics of GM infographics and discuss current trends in using infographics as a marketing strategy. Next, I describe my research methodology, present the findings, and discuss the implications of the findings for business communicators. Finally, I offer suggestions for future research.

Changing Impressions on Chinese Business Communication Preferences

Researchers have suggested that language and culture affect how people communicate. Kaplan (1966) was the earliest to propose the theory of contrastive rhetoric, in which he observed that essays written in oriental languages, such as Chinese, are characterized by a circular, indirect organization whereas essays written in Western languages, such as English, display a linear, direct pattern. Contrastive rhetoric suggests that each language has its own rhetorical patterns that are derived from the linguistic structure of the language, which in turn is defined by and defines the culture of its speakers (Kaplan, 1968). More recent studies (Campbell, 1998; Du-Babcock, 1999, 2006; Graves, 1997; Zaidman & Holmes, 2009) have further demonstrated that language and culture affect the rhetoric of business communication. As Tebeaux and Driskill (1997) rightfully suggested, business communication is cultural education.

Intercultural and international business communication is generally guided by Hall’s (1977) distinction between high- and low-context cultures, along with four sets of cultural dimensions developed by Hofstede (1994, 2001) to describe the cultural variations found in different nations (masculinity vs. femininity, strong uncertainty avoidance vs. weak uncertainty avoidance, high power distance vs. low power distance, individualism vs. collectivism). The most reliable method for pinpointing variations between cultures, according to Hall, De Jong, and Steehouder (2004), is to combine the individualism–collectivism and high- and low-context dimensions:

In low-context cultures, communication is expected to be explicit, direct, and unambiguous. In high-context cultures,…very little is made explicit as part of the message. High-context communication corresponds to the collectivist culture, while low-context communication fits the individualist society. (p. 491)

Being recognized primarily as collectivist and high context, Chinese business and technical communication is characterized as indirect, circular, and implicit (Barnum & Li, 2006; Ding, 2006; Dragga, 1999; Gerritsen & Wannet, 2005; Hall, de Jong, & Steehouder, 2004; Li & Liu, 2006; Trimarchi & Liesch, 2006). But simply characterizing communication styles according to preset cultural dimensions could be limiting in today’s increasingly globalized economy. Cultures in any nation are seldom homogeneous, and international business communication is not simply communication between representatives of nations or cultures (Kankaanranta & Lu, 2013; Starke-Meyerring, 2005; Varner, 2000; Yuan, 1997; Zaidman, 2001). When designing information for a target culture, communicators also need to consider intracultural differences (Kankaanranta & Lu, 2013). In addition, through increased cross-cultural exchanges, communication styles converge as professionals, businesses, and students learn to adopt communication styles from target cultures (Ding, 2006; Kankaanranta & Lu, 2013; Wang, 2010; Yang & Cahill, 2008).

More important, communication styles such as directness and indirectness are never static and are responsive to prevailing social and economic influences. As Wang and Zhu (2011) stated, “against the backdrop of globalization and technological development,…communication also shapes and reshapes culturally bound rhetorical patterns” (p. 85). In China, the rapid economic development and vast Western economic and cultural influence, along with the influence of the Internet, have contributed to a new demand for direct and explicit communication, a new “rhetorical expectation” that we need to understand in order to foster effective intercultural and international communication (St.Amant, 1999, p. 299). As I discussed in the opening of this article, the demand for dry goods that delivers information directly and quickly is expressed by Chinese politicians as well as by the general public. Indirectness might still characterize Chinese communication style, but it certainly has become a less popular rhetorical approach in business communication in which directness and explicitness help to achieve efficiency.

Definitions of an Infographic and Its Application in Business Marketing Communication

Alibaba has responded to this new expectation of business communication in China by serving its affiliated e-entrepreneurs with dry goods infographics—direct and fast visual representations of information. But the term infographic has come to mean many different forms of visual communication. Some current designers and theorists take a broad, inclusive view of the genre. Lankow, Ritchie, and Crooks (2012) suggested that there is

no threshold at which something “becomes” an infographic. It can be as simple as a road sign of a man with a shovel that lets you know there is construction ahead, or as complex as a visual analysis of the global economy. (p. 212)

Smiciklas (2012), in cataloging historical examples of infographics, included visual signs as diverse as prehistoric cave paintings and Otto Neurath’s Isotype icons. And Kimball (2006) used the term “information graphic” even more broadly to include all graphics that provide “clear and immediate visual representation” of information (p. 353).

Krum (2014), however, did not agree that all visual representations of information are examples of infographics. He defined an infographic as a storytelling design composed of visual and textual elements such as illustrations, texts, images, and data visualizations. While including data visualization as a component of an infographic, Krum used the term “visualization” to mean statistical graphics, or the display of quantitative information in static, preplotted charts and graphs, an understanding shared by Borkin et al. (2013) and Dur (2014).

Meanwhile, Cairo (2013) defined an infographic by comparing it with information visualization (infovis), the software-generated representation of large sets of quantitative and qualitative data. Infovis is mostly interactive, and some well-known examples include Hans Rosling’s Gapminder visualizations and NameVoyager, the interactive online baby name wizard. In Cairo’s view, infographics and infovis exist on a presentation–exploration continuum. He suggested that every infographic and visualization has a presentation and exploration component, but to different degrees. The more the graphic tilts toward being a presentation, the more it is recognized as an infographic, and the more the graphic tilts toward being an exploration, the more it is recognized as an infovis.

A definition that most closely summarizes the characteristics of GM infographics builds on these different perspectives; that is, an infographic is a pictorial document that conveys qualitative and quantitative information through texts, illustrations, images, and preplotted, visually embellished statistical graphics. The infographic is a self-contained, stand-alone document from which the viewer can make meaning without resorting to external sources. Unlike interactive visualizations, infographics as defined in this study are static images produced by the designer, and the viewers cannot alter their displays. This definition also describes the commonly accepted idea of an infographic, the kind we see most often in online and print media.

Even with this rather specific definition, examples of infographics in this category are ample and increasingly prevalent in business communication (Toth, 2013), particularly in content marketing for e-businesses (Siricharoen, 2013). In 2015, an estimated 62% of business-to-business content marketers in North America will use infographics as a major marketing tactic, a substantial rise from only 38% in 2013 (Pulizzi, 2012; Pulizzi & Handley, 2014).

In online content marketing, visual contents such as infographics tend to attract more views and be shared more often than verbal contents (Neher, Quindlen, & Webb, 2013). For businesses, one major goal for creating and distributing marketing infographics is to use them to attract a large number of social media shares, or to “go viral.” A viral infographic provides wide and continued exposure to a company and stimulates viewers to further investigate the company’s products or services. Certainly, content and design are critical in viral marketing because for something to go viral, both the senders and the receivers of the information must benefit—the senders receive gratitude and show their uniqueness through forwarding useful messages or distinctive designs, and the receivers get value in the messages (Charlesworth, 2009; Ho & Dempsey, 2010). And for the exposure to be meaningful, Krum (2014) stressed, the subject of the infographic has to be relevant to the company’s business.

Using infographics for content marketing serves two objectives—to inform and to promote. These two objectives intertwine and strengthen each other. When consumers find a company’s contents useful and relevant, they will be more amenable, and even become loyal, to the company and its brand (Erdoğmuş & Cicek, 2012; Lankow et al., 2012). In other words, in launching contents that inform and empower consumers, a company is also building trust and goodwill and therefore promoting its image and brands, and the more it promotes its image and brands, the more people it informs. Alibaba has clearly set out to meet both objectives by providing dry goods infographics to its online marketplace sellers.

Method

I use focus groups to investigate target audience’s attitudes toward GM’s content and design for two reasons. First, focus groups are often used to explore how a target population evaluates and identifies problems in certain messages, concepts, or products (Debus, 1990), and the goal of this research is to understand how sellers on Alibaba’s online marketplaces evaluate the usefulness of GM infographics and to identify areas for improvement. Second, focus groups create a small group dynamic that allows participants to share deep insights on the issues at hand (“Guidelines,” 2005). Because participants in a focus group share certain characteristics, their similarities are likely to put them at ease, making them more willing to share insights. Furthermore, in a group discussion setting, interaction between participants will stimulate richer responses including new and valuable insights (Debus, 1990).

Focus groups can be classified into three types based on the number of participants or discussion mode. A full group involves 8–10 participants, a mini group generally contains 4–6 participants, and a telephone group includes any number of participants who converse via a telephone conference call (Greenbaum, 1998). Debus (1990) suggested that full groups have been going out of fashion because such larger groups restrict each participant’s speaking time, which might frustrate some group members and result in a lower quality and quantity of output. In contrast, mini group sessions are considered to elicit more comprehensive responses from each participant and are often more cohesive and interactive.

One important caveat for recruiting participants for focus groups is that there must be homogeneity in the backgrounds (not attitudes) of the members in one group as well as sufficient variations between groups (Morgan, 1988). Such homogeneity within a group allows researchers to understand how people with similar backgrounds perceive a situation, and the differences between groups allow researchers to see if people from different backgrounds share certain opinions.

For my study, then, I recruited two mini groups of six participants and used two different discussion modes: face-to-face and mobile chat. All participants were active sellers on Alibaba’s largest online marketplace—Taobao.com. The two groups were differentiated by their geographic locations (United States vs. China) and experience levels with Taobao.com (new sellers vs. experienced sellers). The participants who lived in the United States were new sellers with less than a year of Taobao.com selling experience. Having seen the tremendous growth of Taobao.com over the past few years, they were convinced that it was a profitable marketplace to develop their future businesses. These participants met face-to-face, and I audio recorded their discussion.

The group participants who lived in China were more experienced Taobao.com sellers. They had been selling on Taobao.com for 2–5 years and had developed some experience and familiarity with the platform and with online business in general. Because I was not able to physically meet with this group, I held our discussion on WeChat, a mobile chat app that all my participants used daily. A record of the mobile chat discussion was kept in my WeChat account.

Table 1 shows a breakdown of the participants’ locations and experience levels as well as the mode of discussions. Both focus groups were conducted in accordance with the protocols of my university’s institutional review board.

Table 1.

A Breakdown of the Two Focus Groups’ Discussion Modes, Physical Locations of Participants, and Number of Years Participants Have Been Selling on Taobao.com.

Group No.	Participant No.	Physical Location	Discussion Mode	Years Selling on Taobao.com
1	1.1	United States	Face-to-face	<1
1	1.2	United States	Face-to-face	<1
1	1.3	United States	Face-to-face	<1
1	1.4	United States	Face-to-face	<1
1	1.5	United States	Face-to-face	<1
1	1.6	United States	Face-to-face	<1
2	2.1	China	Mobile chat	5
2	2.2	China	Mobile chat	2
2	2.3	China	Mobile chat	2
2	2.4	China	Mobile chat	2
2	2.5	China	Mobile chat	4
2	2.6	China	Mobile chat	4

These participants all actively used GM infographics and subscribed to GM mobile updates. Appendix lists the discussion questions for the groups. During the discussions, instead of providing specific samples, I invited the participants to give their general impressions of GM infographics and then specific examples to support their impressions. I believed that prechoosing a number of samples for the focus groups would limit the scope of the infographics examined. And because these participants were all familiar with GM, they could offer more revealing examples from their own experiences. The examples that I will show here were contributed by focus group members through accessing GM on their smartphones.

Findings

To find out the ways in which participants find GM infographics to be useful, how the visual design of these infographics facilitate or hinder their viewing experience, and what areas they would like to see changed in those infographics (my three research questions), I performed qualitative data analysis. This analysis revealed six overarching themes across the two focus groups.

Theme 1: Sellers Used Infographic Contents in Decision Making and Business Operations

Participants from both groups found the contents of GM infographics highly informative and practical. In other words, they considered GM infographics to be dry goods. The participants shared a range of examples on how they have used the infographics in making business decisions and improving the effectiveness of their day-to-day business operations.

The most impressive example came from a participant in the new seller group. This participant had been selling baby products for years in the United States and did not open a store on Taobao.com until late 2014. His decision to join Taobao.com was not an easy one for him. Because he knew that baby products had remained top-selling commodities on Taobao.com for the last couple of years, he was afraid that the market had become saturated with sellers and that prices would be fiercely competitive. But last year, after following GM infographics for a while, he saw a series of infographics that illustrated China’s consumer market for mothers and babies. This series, based on a 2014 survey of Chinese new and expectant mothers, showed that the baby market was still growing and that the demand for safe, reliable baby products would only increase (for examples of this series, see Figures 1 and 2). He also learned that since the Chinese government had changed its population policy in 2013 from one child per couple to two children if one of the parents is an only child, more babies would be born in the coming decades, so a promising mother and baby market was ahead of him. Then, after locating the actual survey and obtaining information through other research channels, he decided to enter the Taobao.com marketplace.

Figure 1.

Excerpt from Illustrating the Mother–Baby Consumer Market: Interesting Readings of Yummy Mummy Statistics (translated from Chinese). This infographic shows statistics on the current generation of new and expectant Chinese mothers and their perspectives on pregnancy, child-rearing, and baby products; it also illustrates their information-sharing habits. Reprinted with permission from Graphic Media http://www.wshang.com/media/info/pid/529.html (copyright 2014 by Graphic Media).

Figure 2.

Excerpt from Illustrating the Mother–Baby Consumer Market: Buying and Decision Making Capacity of Yummy Mummies (translated from Chinese). Using statistics and graphics, this infographic illustrates the absolute decision making power possessed by new and expectant Chinese mothers and their purchasing preferences, rationales, and most sought-after product types. Reprinted with permission from Graphic Media http://www.wshang.com/media/info/pid/524.html (copyright 2014 by Graphic Media).

Other participants shared examples of how specific infographic content helped them to operate their business, such as by using historical sales data to help make stocking decisions, using trend reports to help choose the next year’s marketing strategy, and applying tips for taking better product photos and improving logistics. All agreed that GM infographics are useful and valuable to their online businesses.

Theme 2: Sellers Obtained Information Within a Negligible Amount of Time

Besides being useful, the visual form of the GM infographics fostered a quick grasp of information. These sellers all expressed that they were busy and had little time to learn through reading books or articles, but viewing the infographics allowed them to obtain useful information in little time and with little effort. Many of the tips and trends presented in the infographics would have remained unknown to them if they were not presented in this visual form.

Theme 3: Graphics Encouraged Viewing and Heavy Texts Discouraged Viewing

Participants in both focus groups enjoyed the visual, graphical nature of most infographics, but they still found some too text heavy. They expected infographics to be a visual medium and therefore expected to see more illustrations, images, and photos that would help them understand a concept. When viewing text-heavy infographics, they normally glanced at the texts and felt that they had gained less insight. For example, one participant identified an infographic on five principles of listing new merchandise for best exposure (see Figure 3). Besides presenting Principle 2 and two additional tips in diagrams, this infographic presents all other information as texts, so the viewer must read the texts under each numbered heading in order to learn these principles.

Figure 3.

Excerpt from Five Golden Principles of Listing New Merchandise (translated from Chinese). This infographic is text heavy because the viewer has to rely on reading the texts under each numbered heading in order to learn the principles. Reprinted with permission from Graphic Media http://www.wshang.com/media/info/pid/558.html (copyright 2014 by Graphic Media).

Another participant identified an infographic in which the illustration helped him grasp the information without having to read texts (except for the headings). Although the infographic (see Figure 4) on how to reduce online store bounce rate carries a lot more texts than does the one on the five principles (see Figure 3), the illustrations directly demonstrate each heading (a strategy for reducing bounce rate). For example, for the first heading, “The Leading Image: Direct Buyers to Look at Your Merchandise” (translated from Chinese), an illustration appearing in close proximity is used to demonstrate how to use the gaze of the model to direct buyers’ attention to the merchandise. Therefore, even though this infographic has more text, its illustrations help readers to quickly grasp the strategies without having to read the texts.

Figure 4.

Excerpt from How to Reduce Store Bounce Rate (translated from Chinese). Effective headings and illustrations help readers to quickly grasp the essence of the infographic without reading texts. Reprinted with permission from Graphic Media http://www.wshang.com/media/info/pid/548.html (copyright 2014 by Graphic Media).

All the participants wanted the graphics to convey information without much help from words. While doing without texts completely is not usually feasible, as they knew, they thought that increasing the ratio of graphics to texts would be a good idea; they also thought that more graphics would make the infographics easier to view on smartphone screens.

Theme 4: Statistical Graphics Encouraged Viewing

While the participants preferred viewing graphics in general, they expressed a strong preference for viewing graphics that visualize statistical information. They found statistical graphics useful because they could make direct visual comparisons of statistical data and come to conclusions that would have been much more time consuming to make through reading articles or viewing numerical tables. This finding corresponds to Theme 1, which suggests that these sellers sometimes rely on the statistics provided in the infographics to help them make business decisions.

But they also recalled instances in which statistics were merely displayed in larger fonts and not in visual forms (e.g., see Figure 5). Such larger fonts were still texts, and reading them did not provide a quick understanding of the meaning and relationship behind the numbers. They wanted all statistics to be well illustrated, such as those shown in Figure 6.

Figure 5.

Excerpt from Reviewing Double 11 History (translated from Chinese). This infographic presents statistics in textual form but bolder and larger than the rest of the text. Highlighting these statistics in such a way does not show patterns or relationships. Reprinted with permission from Graphic Media http://www.wshang.com/media/info/pid/564.html (copyright 2014 by Graphic Media).

Figure 6.

Those Who Win the Female Foodies, Win the “World” (translated from Chinese). This infographic has well-illustrated statistical graphics. Reprinted with permission from Graphic Media http://www.wshang.com/media/info/pid/571.html (copyright 2014 by Graphic Media).

Theme 5: Some Infographics Were Not Ideal for Viewing on Mobile Devices

All the participants viewed GM infographics on their smartphones by subscribing to GM’s WeChat public account, receiving updates on their smartphones whenever a new infographic was added. They found such viewing on their mobile phones to be more convenient than viewing on a computer because they could access their smartphones anytime and anywhere. But this convenience was accompanied with some issues in viewing.

For one, as mentioned in Theme 3, participants found some infographics to be too text heavy and difficult to read on smartphone screens. For example, Figure 7 shows two GM infographics displayed on the same 4.5-inch smartphone screen. The infographic on the left has large graphics and a small amount of text that appears in large, bold typeface, so it is easily viewed without zooming. The viewer needs to scroll down to view the rest of the graphic, but reading on smartphone screens typically requires such scrolling. The infographic on the right, however, contains more text, which appears in thin, small typeface. Texts in this infographic are not legible unless the viewer zooms in and pans around to find the correct content to view. But zooming and panning GM infographics are not desirable operations because the viewer cannot currently accomplish them within the app. To zoom in on an infographic, the viewer must click on a link that says “Read the Original Article” (translated from Chinese) and then be taken to an Internet browser to view the original infographic from the GM Web site. This usability issue might be the result of GM’s having designed these infographics for viewing on the computer and not the mobile screen.

Figure 7.

Two Graphic Media (GM) infographics displayed on the same 4.5-inch smartphone screen. The infographic on the left is legible without zooming, and scrolling down on the image is easily accomplished. Text in the infographic on the right is not legible without zooming, and to zoom in, the viewer must click on a link to visit the GM Web site in order to access the original image.

Participants expressed another issue connected to such mobile viewing—mobile data costs. When an infographic took more than a few seconds to load, as it sometimes did, participants would often choose to quit loading it due to concerns about both mobile data usage and time. Even though the participants valued the information they gained from reading the infographics, they did not seem to make reading them a priority. And when viewing them required effort, time, and cost, they would usually choose to give up viewing.

Theme 6: Incoherent Design Style Caused Inconsistent Design Quality

Participants perceived some GM infographics to be more visually appealing than others, and because of these differences in visual appeal, they did not sense that the design quality of the infographics was consistent. One major design issue that they identified was the inconsistent application of color schemes. As nondesigners, my participants expressed that they liked the visual appeal of some infographics because of their simple and elegant color combinations (e.g., see Figure 8). But others, like the one shown in Figure 9, appeared to have too many colors and shades and looked busy and confusing.

Figure 8.

An example of a Graphic Media (GM) infographic that has a simple and elegant color scheme. Reprinted with permission from GM http://www.wshang.com/media/info/pid/583.html (copyright 2014 by Graphic Media).

Figure 9.

An example of a Graphic Media (GM) infographic that uses so many colors and shades that users find it to be confusing. Reprinted with permission from GM http://www.wshang.com/media/info/pid/553.html (copyright 2014 by Graphic Media).

The participants recognized that most, if not all, GM infographics shared a standard header and footer design—a block with a black background, white text, GM logo, and quick response code for mobile scanning (see Figures 8 and 9). But they still noticed some differences in design quality and felt that these differences disrupted consistency. Although participants understood that a team of different designers designed these infographics and that there should be differences in style, they wanted an overall guiding principle to control the quality of the visual design. Some participants even suggested that more coherence in design would save them time because they would not have to mentally adjust to a different style every time they viewed a new infographic. As one participant stated, “I am here to get information, not to enjoy art, and I do not want to be surprised with a brand new design every time” (translated from Chinese).

Implications for Business Communicators and Information Designers

Based on these findings, I present three suggestions for improving infographic design. These suggestions, though derived from studying GM infographics, can apply to infographic design in similar contexts and with similar objectives—that is, content marketing business infographics that inform consumers and promote the company or organization through social media shares and continued exposure.

Suggestion 1: Develop Infographics for Optimal Viewing on Mobile Devices

Mobile devices, especially smartphones, have become a more popular platform than computers for consuming digital information. All participants in this study used smartphones to access GM infographics. Because of the soaring popularity of mobile device ownership, designers should create infographics that can be viewed easily across platforms, particularly on mobile devices. Designers can do so by using responsive Web design, a technique that creates content in multiple fluid grids that look good at any size and across devices with minimum user resizing, panning, and scrolling. With simple HTML coding, designers can also turn infographics into responsive images that can flexibly adapt to any screen size without losing resolution.

Optimizing for mobile viewing also means achieving a larger ratio of graphics to texts so that infographics are less reliant on large quantities of texts to convey important information because texts are harder to read on small screens. Also, designers must consider users’ time and mobile data costs because infographics that do not load within seconds or that consume too much mobile data are likely to cause users to quit viewing.

Suggestion 2: Create a Coherent Design Style

Users wanted infographics with useful content and a coherent visual design to bring out that content. But having a consistent and coherent design does not mean that all infographics should look the same. Quite the contrary, every infographic should have its own design to fit the content; however, some elements of the design should be standardized and used consistently (e.g., typography, color schemes, headers and footers, page orientations) to manifest a consistent look and feel that represent the organization and its brand. This process is similar to creating a style guide for consistency in technical and business documents. For optimal mobile viewing, the infographic style guide can define a range of simple and readable typefaces and specify how they should be used at different text levels (e.g., bold typeface for first- and second-level texts, regular typeface for a third-level text).

Suggestion 3: Train Viewers to Be Advanced Statistical Graphic Consumers and Loyal Followers

The findings suggest that Taobao.com sellers rely on GM infographics as one of their main forms of business intelligence. They applaud the fact that GM infographics contained many statistical graphics, and they want to see more numbers presented in graphical form. Because sellers often use these statistics to inform their business decisions, they would benefit from more complex intelligence in the form of more advanced statistical graphics that represent inferential and multivariate data.

Currently, GM statistical graphics, like those in many other infographics, are based on descriptive statistics and present univariate data. Descriptive statistics describe or summarize data that have been collected from a study. While such statistics can be useful in understanding the population from which the data were drawn, they do not allow generalization. In other words, conclusions can be drawn only about the studied population and cannot be generalized for a larger one. Inferential statistics, on the other hand, analyze data from a sample and draw conclusions that extend beyond the immediate data (Trochim, 2006). For instance, designers can use results from an inferential statistical analysis (usually obtained through using such calculation models as the t-test, cluster analysis, or analysis of variance on sample data sets) to help business owners predict what products or services will be popular over the next 5 years. Audiences will find graphics that convey inferential analyses more helpful in making estimations and anticipating trends.

Another common characteristic of GM statistical graphics, and of most content-marketing infographics, is that they present only univariate data. A univariate data analysis compares multiple instances of a single quantitative variable (Few, 2009), such as monthly sales volume, or one variable to another, such as the sale of wedding gowns versus evening dresses. Such an analysis provides viewers an immediate visual comparison of data.

But some business decisions need to be based on a comparison between multiple sets of variables, and such comparison is more effectively displayed in multivariate graphs. With multivariate graphs, viewers can see and compare multiple instances of several variables at once and can identify similarities and differences between items (Few, 2009). Figure 10 shows a multivariate graph with lines connecting each variable (e.g., price, duration, revenue, units sold, marketing expenses, and profit) in order to represent each product profile. The shapes formed by the individual lines create patterns that allow viewers to see the similarities and differences between products. Using this multivariate graph, then, viewers can check predominant patterns associated with these products.

Figure 10.

I am not suggesting, however, that all infographics use multivariate graphs. Complicated graphs are more warranted in certain situations than in others. For example, a seller who is trying to choose between several express delivery services must take into account factors such as speed, cost, and reliability when comparing different service providers. To facilitate a more effective comparison, the infographic designer can use a graph that compares these variables as a whole set in one multivariate graph and not separately in several univariate graphs. But if the infographic’s purpose is simply to compare the annual sales, the univariate graph is a better option.

In Alibaba’s case, as the findings suggest, the sellers were not only viewing the GM infographics to get quick information; they had also been using them as useful information sources to aid in their business decision making. Their context warranted that they be provided with more sophisticated, albeit difficult, charts to help them make more informed decisions. In addition, GM’s audience demographic can be as diverse as Alibaba’s population of sellers, who have various levels of education and visual and statistical literacy and different expectations for the infographics. Some may find the simple graphs sufficient, and others may want more complicated ones. Designers must have the skill and flexibility to choose the right type of graph for different purposes and audiences. By creating infographics that provide information and business intelligence that could not be easily obtained from other sources, designers foster loyalty from their infographic followers because of the infographics’ unique values and insights.

Suggestions for Future Research

This study suggests that users of GM infographics strongly preferred viewing statistical graphics as their sources of business intelligence. Furthermore, decades of scholarship has documented that no other approach can compete with statistical graphics in revealing structures of quantitative information and in aiding viewers’ comprehension and retention (e.g., Chambers, Cleveland, Kleiner, & Tukey, 1983; Cleveland, 1984, 1985; Cleveland & McGill, 1984; Fisher, 1925; Haemer, 1951; Segel & Heer, 2010; Steele & Iliinsky, 2011; Tufte, 1983; Tukey, 1993). Therefore, further study of the statistical or data graphics embedded in infographics would be worthwhile. User tests could investigate whether and to what extent infographics facilitate the efficient and accurate perception of quantitative information. Interviews or focus groups with graphic and data design professionals could be conducted to find out major design aspects that facilitate or hinder comprehension and to identify areas of improvement.

In addition, this study’s findings on user attitudes toward design could be complemented with studies of infographics as visual artifacts. Researchers might examine questions such as What visual strategies do infographics employ to attract viewers and facilitate viewing? and What visual strategies or principles can we distill from studying exemplary infographics? Finding answers to such questions would help designers to improve their practices and help nondesigners to start building their own visual communication materials to inform and to promote.

Conclusion

If Alibaba’s goals in establishing GM were to use infographics to educate its sellers, to attract and persuade potential sellers to join its online marketplaces, and to build trust among its users, then this study shows that these goals are being met. My participants viewed GM as a useful information source and went there to seek ideas on how to run their online stores more effectively. The sellers also trust Alibaba’s information enough that they based some business decisions on these infographics. In other words, GM has become a form of business intelligence for these small business owners. Alibaba’s infographics, by striving to cover a wide range of e-commerce topics, are successful in meeting the need for practical, engaging, and easy-to-comprehend bits of knowledge and therefore are dry goods that serve to both inform its users and promote the company.

The demand for dry goods contents is not only a Chinese phenomenon, it is also something that all audiences crave in this age of information overload. The demand for dry goods and the desire for direct contents that are demonstrated in this study also remind designers and communicators that local contexts are as important in framing audience needs as are commonly held notions of communication styles, such as the notion that Chinese business communication should convey an indirect style. In this case, an indirect style of business communication is not desirable in Chinese infographics created for marketing purposes. Because designing communication products relies on analyzing audiences and local contexts, today’s business communicators are well positioned to take on the task of infographic design. With expertise in writing and document design, coupled with an understanding of the end users and the ability to quickly learn new graphical tools, business communicators can confidently take advantage of the many opportunities provided by infographics in order to achieve more effective and synergetic visual communication.

Footnotes

Appendix

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank the reviewers and editors for their patience and sage advice that helped tremendously in writing this article. She also wishes to thank Lori Peterson, managing editor of Journal of Business and Technical Communication, for her tireless help in copyediting the article.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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