Generation of Infographics Considering Information Recipients

Abstract

Infographics convey information in attractive and effective way by transforming and combining various types of data, such as texts and pictures. Today infographics are often created using computer software. However, these tools generally require a user proficient skill and deep understanding upon operation. In this paper, we propose a user-friendly assistance system for creating infographics by using natural language as its input. Infographics created by this system contain numerical expressions and icons based on important numbers and nouns that included in the given texts. In addition, considering that the same information can bring different feelings to people by changing a writing style of texts (such as pessimistic/optimistic) and numerical expressions, our system provides a function to select a base color of infographics as "positive" or "negative". To evaluate our method, we conducted a questionnaire survey comparing infographics of different colors that assumed to affect an impression of information. As the results of analysis, it was found that the color-controlled infographics are much more efficient to enhance the impression in the intended direction than comparative images without color control.