Easel.ly - Infographics and Persuasion

Infographics are the new thing it seems for telling a story or supporting an argument. Easel.ly is a free web-based tool that lets you work with templates for creating really elegant visual representations of information. There are a bunch of templates and objects that can be added to the infographic, and you can upload your own content.

The interface is very simple and easy to navigate. While I love the updates to the Prezi editor and have generally thought that Glogster is a interesting presentation medium, I find that Easel.ly has better web-based interface design for visual content organization. My only gripe is that it doesn't work well on the iPad!

With this growing use of infographics, I like to remind myself about how easy it is to be persuaded by the arrangement of information rather than the facts. I think it is a skill to create persuavive materials, but I also think that a fine line has to be drawn between persuasion and deception.  What would you think if you saw this infographic at the top of this post?