This infographic is still incomplete; I'm posting it here in the hope that I can get some feedback about it. It has three goals:
- To explain what federation is. No technobabble, just a simple analogy with houses and a neighbourhood.
- To explain why federation is good for users.
- [TODO] Specific info about the Fediverse, plus some really simple FAQ.
Criticism is welcome as long as constructive.
EDIT: OK, too much text. I'm clipping as much as I can.
Maybe take the approach of showing very simple federation first, with as little text as possible (i.e. One short statement describing each graphic element), and perhaps only 3 "houses". Because in the end, anything beyond that is just duplicating the same thing (yea, there's more, but for an info graphic it really doesn't matter).
You have no choice but to lose accuracy. You can either present a high-level, abstract/conceptual view of something, or present more detail. Getting the concept across first is essential; no one's gonna grok any detail without the conceptual framework to hang it on.
Also, is that second house the same as the first house? It seems like you're showing the owner of the house using a second graphic. That kind of info would work better perhaps on the right side, so you have internet user on left, and house owner on right. It makes for two clearly separate concepts.
I'd also give the characters names. "House owner" is harder for someone to keep in their head than "Bob". Maybe internet user is Karen. Etc. "Karen uses Bob's server to chat with people" is a lot easier to think about than "internet user" and "owner".
A really good exercise is to try to make it as simple as possible while still getting the concept across, then adding detail.
For the simplest example, you only need two. I've heard people explain it as "Reddit A" and "Reddit B", with some success.