This is part 2 of my review of some articles in TOI Delhi’s Union Budget 2014 edition published on 11th July 2014. Read part 1 here.
This was an entire newspaper spread with several information pieces on tax and money. The articles or subjects of discussions are very clearly separated by content blocking through columns. In all, the page very clearly tells you what it is about. Because the ratio of the images to the text is relatively higher than usual, it is also more inviting to read.
Impact of Revised Taxes
Originally printed like shown below, this infographic panel talks about the revised laws.
1. Using cakes to show impact of revised tax is very misleading. At a glance, I would assume these are stats for consumption of different kinds of cakes. But since this article was in the finance section of a newspaper, my brain put 2 and 2 together and concluded it wasn’t about cakes after all. As a user, I find this unnecessary. I shouldn’t need to spend so much energy assuming what this could be about. I cannot figure out why they have used cakes here and whatever the reason may be it fails to communicate itself to the user.
2. All the different salary brackets have been constrained into boxes. Each box contains two cakes – One representing the old tax liability and the other, new. Now, I know this because the descriptor says so. There is no visual difference between the old and the new cake. And neither are the slices of cake made to look like they are of different sizes – considering that is what is essentially being talked about.
3. Sms emoticons have been used next to the ‘impact’ number – showing positive impact with a ‘ : ) ‘ and no impact with ‘ : | ‘ . These smileys have a very texting-chat-web connotation and somehow suggests its association not to a subject of finance, but a service related to social media or communication. And overall, when seen with the cakes, it all feels like children’s recreation.