What are infographics?
Infographics have become an indispensable addition to information sharing by individuals, businesses, not-for-profit organisations, and government departments. They combine images, video content, text, and data in an easy-to-consume and understand the component of a website, social media site, or another form of digital communication. Because the world is becoming increasingly globalized, infographics commonly need to be translated.
Infographic translation is a specialized niche field for translators and anyone contemplating translating their infographics needs to carefully select a translation agency that specializes in this form of translation.
The importance of infographics translation
Infographics translation is as important as the infographics themselves. While infographics are not solely made up of chunks of text, without the text they may not convey the same sort of meaning as they should and could even be misunderstood or cause confusion.
Infographics are an essential part of digital communication and therefore infographics translation is an integral part of presenting infographics in situations where there are multilingual users of that messaging. This could be within a single country where there is more than a single language (e.g. Switzerland in Europe or Malaysia in Asia) or when the digital messaging is being targeted at several different countries where different languages are commonly used.
How should infographics be translated?
Most text components of infographics, including subtitles and headings, can be translated just like any type of text, with the proviso that any infographics specifically aimed at promoting a new product may need to take into account cultural nuances in the target population. This is no different than any other marketing translation, such as text on web pages, slogans, pamphlets, advertising on traditional media, and so on.
This sort of translation needs the skills of translators who are familiar with localization techniques, i.e. making sure that the text used is not culturally confusing or offensive. This goes for the images and data used as well, so the whole package of translating infographics designed for marketing purposes may be left to experts in localization. The translation component is then just a part of the whole.
Much use of infographics is far less complicated. For example, technical, medical, and scientific-based infographics typically do not need anything but the text changed, as the cultural significance is not so important. For example, user manuals for new appliances these days are often accessed on the manufacturer’s own website. Infographics are commonly used in these “how to” manuals to help explain how to set up or use a new device or appliance. Labels for parts of equipment do need to be translated as well as any subtitling if there are video segments together with the main text used in the manual.
Conclusion
If you are intending to use infographics for new users or consumers who are not likely to understand the infographics you have already created in your own language, you will need to have these infographics professionally translated. Without infographics translation, their effectiveness in presenting the chunk of information you have developed will be absent or much reduced. Don’t hope that avoiding having your infographics, or any other material you have made available to the public, translated will help your budget. Your competitor, if you have one, will have worked out why infographics translation can be a powerful tool for presenting information in a meaningful way!