Are you a visual learner? Do you learn by looking at pictures? According to educational publisher Prentice-Hall, 65% of all people are visual learners.
If you are a blogger, and your goal is to inform your readers, you need to accompany your text with pictures or 65% of your readers will be missing out. There are other statistics that say up to 85% of the population could learn by looking at pictures.
Professional looking pictures take money and time to create. As bloggers, most of us are strapped for time and don’t get paid anything to inform our readers.
Easel.ly is a theme-based web app for creating infographics and data visualizations. By using what is on your easel, you’ll be expressing your creativity. It’s free, fast, and fun.
My post 5 Simple Ways to Increase Your Readers’ Time at Your Blog explains the importance of infographics. After reading it, my commenters wrote that they wish they had time to create infographics. Now everyone does.
Infographics are everywhere because they are great at sharing information creatively. They especially lend themselves to depicting numerical data easily. For example, there are only a few steps to using Easel.ly which is easy to see by looking at my infographic. In addition, they often get pinned and clicked on by the Pinterest crowd which will enable your blog post that goes with the infographic to get more exposure.
Welcome to My Easel.ly Tutorial!
Step 1: Go to http://www.easel.ly/ and make an account. Or, you can log in with an account you’ve already made for Facebook or Google.
Step 2: Click “Start Fresh”
Step 3: Click Vhemes (Visuals + Themes)
Step 4: When the Vhemes open, find one that suits the information that you want to present visually. Pull the theme straight down onto the work area and the elements that appear on the screen will go away. Or, you can click “Clear,” and you will have a blank screen to work on. All the elements–the background, the pictures, and the text–are all editable.
If you want to add an object, click “object”. A drop down menu will open which will give you choices. When you find what you want to place, drag the element down.
You can rotate the position of the objects. For example, I turned one of my arrows upside down.
If you want to change the background, click “background” and drag your preferred background down. My infographic originally came in blue.
Step 5: Double click on the text you want to edit. An editing space appears that will show you what the edited text will look like. There are controls that appear when you click that allow you to control the size of the elements.
If you want additional text, click “text,” and a new text box will appear that you can edit. With Easel.ly, you are able to change the size, font style, and color just like in a Word Processor.
Step 6: Click “Save” and name your infographic.
Step 7: Click “Download” from the Design Menu. I then choose “High Quality” to get an image so I can bring my infographic into my computer.
That’s all there is to using Easel.ly. All you do is pick from a wide variety of themes, adjust the elements, and save your work.
Are you a visual learner who would like to see first-hand? Watch the video. Since it only takes five minutes to make an infographic using Easel.ly, the video is only five minutes long.
Easel.ly is easy, free, fast, and fun.
If you think others could benefit from knowing about Easel.ly, please share. Readers, do you make infographics? How? Do you have experience with Easel.ly? I look forward to your views.
Related posts:
4 Simple Ways to Start Blogging Creatively
4 Practical Reasons Pinterest Will Make You a Better Blogger
How to Quintuple Your Page Views Using Pinterest
How to Use Canva: A Quick Guide
Sources:
http://www.phschool.com/eteach/social_studies/2003_05/essay.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VHyKgdbUhU
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