ABSTRACT
Information graphics-visual representations of quantities, relationships, or processes-are ubiquitous in business and technical contexts as well as in everyday life. Among their crucial functions is to help us make sense of the “overwhelming onslaught of raw data” (Wurman, 2001, p. 6) that comes to us on any given day. Although writing teachers have traditionally been most concerned and
comfortable with words, technical communication teachers are expected also to
teach information graphics, which require not only verbal literacy, but also, in
approximately equal measure, design sensibility, software competence, and
numerical fluency. In fact, the ability to select, interpret, and produce effective information graphics can be seen as related to “numeracy,” or “mathematical literacy,” “the aggregate of skills, knowledge, beliefs, patterns of thinking, and related communicative and problem-solving processes individuals need to effectively interpret and handle real-world quantitative situations, problems, and tasks” (Curry, Schmitt, & Waldron, 1996).
