How to make infographics: a beginner’s guide to data visualisation

Recently, I planned to use a JS interactive chart library in my blog posts instead of prerendrting the graphics using R/ggplot2, but I decided against it. I realized something: what's the point of an interactive chart on a blog post, which uses only static, unchanging data?

For example, look at the interactive chart used in Jawbone's Earthquake blog post: https://jawbone.com/blog/napa-earthquake-effect-on-sleep/

Does it gain any benefit from being interactive as opposed to just using an image? Yes, you can mouse over each point for exact times/percentages, but that should already be implied by properly-defined chart axes, and it doesn't help enhance the meaning of the chart (e.g. the spike)

Additionally, from my own testing, each charting library has its own quirks in both construction and mobile usage (e.g. if chart implements a zoom feature, you can't scroll it on mobile) so every chart I make would require additional QA to make sure it works as expected, and it would slow down blog post creation to a halt.

If I was creating an application with dynamic, unpredictable data, then interactive charts would be valuable, but otherwise interactive charts with normal data seems like a gimmick.

Also, one very important caveat with SVG chart libraries: you can't easily convert the chart to an image, with makes going viral harder. (Canvas-libraies are not affected, though. Highcharts has an export module too, albeit it's not very convenient.)