If you're subscribed to a few optical blogs, you'll know that we're big fans of displaying dense information in the form of an infographic. Infographics are visual snapshots of data and are a huge growing trend on the web, especially in healthcare. Infographic sites keep cropping up that cover every single subject. Most of these infographics can be shared (creative commons), as long as you link the resource.
For eyecare professionals, infographics are fun and interesting news for your followers, networkers, patients, family and friends. You can share them on social media, send them through your patient portal, create your own blogs for them, or print and display with certain products.
6 Free Tools To Help You Make Infographics
Let's help you get started with a few optometry-specific ideas. You can make infographics about relevant eye health stats, especially bespoke charts for diseases (macular degeneration, glaucoma, dry eye) that your patients often deal with. These can be made into pamphlets or posters for your practice. Another idea we like is creating a digital infographic including the top benefits of attending an annual eye exam. You can email these through your patient portal as part of your patient education and improve your patient retention while you're at it.
Make Use Of has a great article on Tips for Creating Incredible Infographics as well as a listing of FREE Tools to make infographics. We've highlighted a few of the most useful resources here, but we encourage you to first study infographics you admire to get a good feel for the layout you desire.
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Stat Planet allows you to create some amazing interactive maps.
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Hohli is an intuitive, simple online chart maker.
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Tableau Public is a free Windows-only software for creating visualizations.
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GapMinder is a free Adobe Air (cross-platform by nature) application.
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Inkscape is a free vector graphic software available for many platforms.
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Creately lets you make easy-to-make diagrams and flow charts.
Do you know what exactly happens to your claims from creation to payment? Well we made an infographic that shows you. Click through to see it.
