Epigraphics: Message-Driven Infographics Authoring

The message a designer wants to convey plays a pivotal role in directing the design of an infographic, yet most authoring work-flows start with creating the visualizations or graphics first without gauging whether they fit the message. To address this gap, we propose Epigraphics, a web-based authoring system that treats an "epigraph" as the first-class object, and uses it to guide infographic asset creation, editing, and syncing. The system uses the text-based message to recommend visualizations, graphics, data filters, color palettes, and animations. It further supports between-asset interactions and fine-tuning such as recoloring, highlighting, and animation syncing that enhance the aesthetic cohesiveness of the assets. A gallery and case studies show that our system can produce infographics inspired by existing popular ones, and a task-based usability study with 10 designers show that a text-sourced workflow can standardize content, empower users to think more about the big picture, and facilitate rapid prototyping.