Interactive Infographic Designs in PowerPoint

At SlideRabbit, we love the challenge of pushing PowerPoint beyond slides. In our last post, we discussed creating infographics from text content.

Today, we’ll take that further: turning infographic designs into interactive pieces. Check out this infographic, which invites the user to learn more by clicking on different elements.

This piece was produced in PowerPoint. The software to create interactive pieces is at your finger tips.

Read on below for tips on how to bring an infographic design to life.

Put the foundation infographic on the master level to keep editing simple

Create and design the infographic on the master slide level. This way, any edits will then populate through the file, eliminating the need to edit every slide.

Because the PPT hyperlinking function does not work on groups of items, add invisible shapes over the elements that you’d like to be clickable. These shapes will have no fill, so they will not show to the user, but they trigger the rollover cursor to show that there is a link.

Use Insert > Hyperlink to link these shapes to the slides that contains the correct pop-out.

Pro Tip: Covering a large space with the link will create a more user-friendly piece.

Design the expanded data pop outs

The data pop out elements will live at the slide level. You’ll need one slide for the main infographic (just the master, with nothing on top) and one slide for each pop out.

Once all the pop out slides are created, use the hyperlinking tool (Insert > Hyperlink) to link shapes on the main infographic to the correct pop out.

Now that the user has clicked open a pop out, they need to be able to get back to the main infographic. Because users often “click off” of elements they’d like to close, make your “close” links cover your entire slide. These links return the user to the main slide so they can click another section.

To create a file that will launch directly into interactivity mode, use the .ppsx file type.

With a little creativity and know-how, PowerPoint is an accessible and powerful platform to create engaging marketing or learning pieces.

Have an out-of-the-box PowerPoint need? Contact us here for help.