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 workflows 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.