Why do visuals work?

Rachel Burnham writes: A well-designed visual can be a powerful communication tool, which can be used to inform, inspire and as a guide to action.  They are a useful part of the toolkit for those in organisations, who want to communicate information & ideas, enable learning and support effective performance. 

So often visuals are used for purely decorative purposes – which is fine for plates and tea towels – but is a missed opportunity in learning.  And worse, using visuals purely for decorative purposes can be distracting and get in the way of learning by causing cognitive overload.  However, visuals used purposefully and particularly when used to explain are highly effective.

A well-designed visual can enable you to grasp the key points of a concept or process or practice all at once and also pick up details.   You can ‘see the big picture’ and also components within the main idea and how these fit together – it is ‘computational efficient’ compared to using just a written or verbal presentation.  An example of this is my recent Sketchnote on Psychological Safety, which in a single visual explores what this is, what it contributes too and what leaders can do to support this in their teams. When I shared this recently one person commented that this Sketchnote managed to set out on a single page, what others had taken 15 slides to explain.

The reason a well-designed visual works is that you are able take in all the key information synchronously ie at the same time, whereas written or spoken language is sequential and this requires you to work much harder to link the various pieces of information together. This is known as ‘The Visual Argument’ and comes from the work of Allan Paivio.

In addition, a visual is able to make use of the spatial arrangement on the page to convey elements of the information and we often find this an easy way to take in information, without having to work too hard for it.  For example, items physically closer together on the page are understood to be more closely related; arrows and location can indicate which items come first in a sequence; and bigger items are understood to be more important to physically smaller items.  

A well-designed visual can be particularly useful when you are new to a particular subject, as it helps you to build a mental model of the topic.   As you become more familiar, informed and experienced in a particular field, it becomes easier to build on and adapt your mental models to incorporate further details and nuances because you already have a sense of the area in question and can use your existing mental model as a scaffold to hook new ideas & information onto.  A great visual can help to shortcut this process.

Great visuals can also be useful if reading is not one of your strengths for example if you have dyslexia, or perhaps are working in a language that is not your first language.

Well-designed visuals can be used in many ways.  They could form the basis for a performance support tool – a practical guide to help people do a particular task or activity. They could be used as a way to present information & ideas and be accompanied by prompts to aid reflection & action.   A visual could be used as the basis for a discussion within a team or amongst a group of peers, as an alternative to a presentation.  The visual could be part of a wider package or stand alone.

 

If you would like to discuss more about how to use visuals effectively to aid learning, why not get in touch?   I am also working with Andrew Jacobs on a free Llarn Learning Clinic on Thursday 24 November 2022 at 11am on this subject – why not book a place? It would be great to see you there.

Rachel Burnham

3 November 2022

I help individuals and organisations to use visuals to think, learn and work more effectively, particularly though using Sketchnoting and drawing.

 

Sketchnotes from Learning Technologies 2017

Rachel Burnham writes: I had a great time at the Learning Technologies Conference & Exhibition earlier this week.  Amongst other things I drew a number of Sketchnotes from the sessions I participated in.  Here they are:

Rachel Burnham

3/2/17

Burnham L & D Consultancy helps L&D professionals update and refresh their skills.  I do this through: writing & design commissions; facilitating learning to update knowhow, 1:1 and bespoke ‘train the trainer’ sessions; and the use of Sketchnoting to facilitate learning.

5 Pointers for Getting Your Head Around the New E-Learning

Rachel Burnham writes: I have had an amazing time over the last year participating in the Curatr based MOOC ‘E-learning: Beyond the NextButton’.  This was a 12 month based free online course to explore new ideas and approaches to e-learning – each month new material was released and an international group of participants explored a whole range of e-learning related topics.  I have learnt so much.

I was already aware that e-learning is a much broader field, than the traditional e-learning course, which is often used to deliver compliance training and involves those endless ‘Next’ buttons to take you onto the next page (hence the title of the MOOC).   I have previously used the CIPD definition of e-learning

‘learning that is delivered, enabled or mediated using electronic technology for the explicit purpose of training, learning or development in organisations.’

(Egan, 2012)

And this recognises that e-learning can include: webinars/virtual classrooms/live online learning; podcasts; use of video; discussion forums; digital resources such as blogs/infographics/e-books; and the use of social media and enterprise social networks.

What this MOOC introduced me to was e-learning as also encompassing the use of AI (artificial intelligence), VR (virtual reality), AR (augumented reality), Wearables, Proximity Beacons and Bots, plus how these links to some of the research into effective learning, such as spaced learning.  So it has widened my understanding of how technology can be used to support and enable learning hugely.

This is a rapidly expanding and developing field.  It was great to hear about the possibilities of AI to enable much more personalised learning experiences and to experience the use of AI in language learning through programmes such as Duolingo. It is fascinating to hear how rapidly messaging is growing and along with this chat bots that are being used to answer customer queries. These can be used in learning both to provider learner support and also to aid with learning practice.

‘Wearables’ is another rapidly developing field – probably most of us have heard of tools such as Google Glass and fitness bracelets, which opens up the possibility of using wearables to host performance support tools. Proximity Beacons came as something entirely new to me, but are beginning to be used in museums and galleries to provide additional information directly to visitors’ phones where they have the relevant app installed and again I can see the huge potential in these for performance support, particularly in equipment rich environments.  

Augmented Reality or AR hit the public awareness over the last summer with the Pokemon Go craze, but as the technology develops there are lots of possibilities to use AR for performance support and as a new kind of resource for learning.   Virtual Reality or VR is already being explored by very many organisations to provide opportunity for people to have immersive experiences with lots of potential for impacting on behaviours and attitudes as well as to orientate people to new roles and locations.

With so many different kinds of e-learning and with the speed of developments in this field it is easy to feel overwhelmed by all of this.   In L&D we urgently need to steer a course between being an ostrich with our head in the sand and being a magpie picking up every new and shiny thing that comes along.

Instead, I have 5 pointers to help you get your head around these developments.

1)  I recommend deploying your Personal Learning Network (PLN) to help you keep up to date with developments in these fields.  By PLN I mean your network of colleagues, contacts and acquaintances that you interact with both in person and virtually.  Make sure that within your PLN you include people who are already working with these kinds of technologies  - follow them on social media, read their posts & blogs and engage with them.  They will act as translators & conductors for developments in these fields helping you to stay in touch.  Plus, this will give you some ‘go-to’ people as starting points if you want to find out more about any particular technology.

2)  Develop a broad awareness of each of these technologies in terms of their particular characteristics and how they can be best used to aid learning - what are their strengths and weaknesses.  This is just the same as understanding when and how best to use a game or video or other more traditional learning tool.  Not every tool is useful in every situation.

3)  Link this awareness to a deep understanding of what is needed in your own organisation to help people and teams perform to their very best ability.  Consider carefully which tools will help to make learning more effective. Some tools will have potential for use in your organisation and some won’t.  Avoid magpie tendencies to get excited about something that isn’t relevant to your own organisation.

4)  Don’t fall into the trap of just limiting these tools to creating more effective learning.  Keep focussed on performance.  Some of the tools may do away or reduce the need for learning at all, by substituting the need for learning with improved performance support.

5)  Experiment – once you have identified which tools have potential within your organisation, try them out.  Experiment with small trials and learn from this.

So these are my 5 pointers to help you navigate through this changing technology and steer a course clear of both ostriches and magpies!

Rachel Burnham

23/1/17

Burnham L & D Consultancy helps L&D professionals update and refresh their skills.  I am particularly interested in blended learning, the uses of social media for learning, evaluation and anything that improves the impact of learning on performance. 

The Performance Paradox

The Performance Paradox

I believe that for L&D professionals to be become truly effective one of the changes we need to make is to stop focussing so much on learning.   I realise that sounds a little crazy because helping people to learn things is what we are all about – isn’t it?  

I have participated in many beautifully facilitated and wonderfully crafted sessions with clear & focused learning outcomes, including interactive activities which involved participants in sharing experiences and from which we were all able to identify things we had learnt.  (OK – perhaps I exaggerate - I’ve also participated in some sessions which were dull, overly filled with slides and poorly run – but that’s another story).   But if what we are learning isn’t relevant to what we are doing in the workplace, if there is no encouragement given to use what has been learnt, if there is no compelling incentive to overcome our human tendency to return to what we were doing previously, then what chance is there that what we have learnt will have any impact at all on what we do at work and the results we achieve?

We need, as L&D professionals, to focus not on learning but ‘performance’.  Unlike school teachers we are not in the business of ‘education’ but in the business of business – well at least of enabling the people in our organisation to contribute more effectively to achieving the organisation’s objectives. So, that means that we need to keep our focus on ‘performance’.   As Clark Quinn puts it in ‘Revolutionize Learning & Development’ ‘The focus of learning and development is to prepare people, but we need to focus on people doing, and work backwards to how we prepare them.’ (2014)

Everything else that we do follows on from this focus on performance.

If we are identifying needs – we need to consider not just the knowledge, skills & behaviours that learning addresses, but anything that impacts on the overall performance of individuals & teams.  So that means considering factors such as: access to equipment; resources; systems & processes; management support; information & feedback provided; or organisational culture and deciding if they could be affecting performance and if so, addressing these issues alongside any learning needs. 

There will be times when a learning solution simply isn’t the most effective answer.  Increasingly, we don’t need to have all the knowledge to do our jobs effectively in our heads, but at our fingertips – in performance support tools and accessible through our network of colleagues & external contacts.  In our complex and fast-changing world, we can’t possibly manage to have all the knowledge we need within our heads, so we have no choice but to learn to access it as & when we need to.

This means designing learning solutions that may run alongside performance support tools or with other changes designed to address these other factors which are impacting on performance.

By focusing on ‘performance’ from the outset, we do aside with concerns about the ‘problem of learning transfer’ because it is hard-wired into our thinking right from the start.   Evaluation of the impact of L&D becomes more straight forward – we focus on the impact that the total package has had on – you guessed it – performance – using the measures used by the organisation.

So, it makes perfect sense - let’s focus less on learning and more on performance!  Sometimes less is more.

 (This post was originally written for CIPD ToolClicks LinkedIn Group and published in March 2015)

Rachel Burnham

12/11/15

Burnham L & D Consultancy helps L&D professionals become even more effective.  I am particularly interested in blended learning, the uses of social media for learning, evaluation and anything that improves the impact of learning on performance.

Follow me on Twitter @BurnhamLandD

5 Books to Help You Get Out of the Training Room

Rachel Burnham writes:  Here are some wonderful, practical yet inspiring books to help you to create relevant and useful learning opportunities that aren’t limited to face to face delivery in a training room.  They aren’t brand new books – but they are full of useful advice that can help you to try out different approaches and build on the experience of experts.

‘The Blended Learning Cookbook’ 2^nd Edition by Clive Shepherd (2008) Published by Saffron Interactive.

As the title suggests this book is all about blended learning and how to design learning effectively using a mix of learning methods.  It opens with three short sections which provide some background to the topic and overall thinking, before moving onto the core of the book which is a series of practical examples of different blended programmes designed to meet a range of needs.   The great thing about these examples is the sheer variety and this means that it can give you some great ideas for starting points for designs to meet needs in your own organisation.  

‘Informal Learning At Work – How to Boost Performance in Tough Times’ by Paul Matthews (2013) Published by Three Faces Publishing.

In this book Paul Matthews explores informal learning – those very many learning opportunites beyond formal courses and education.  He sets out the advantages to be gained from recognising & encouraging informal learning in organisations and sets out how L&D teams can encourage a learnscape that facilitates this.   He includes many examples to illustrate his points and provides evidence of the effectiveness of informal learning.  He includes lots of examples of different forms of informal learning, so that you get a great sense of the range of possibilities.  

My only criticism of this book, is that there are sometimes so many examples provided that you lose the narrative thread  (well I did!), but this does make it a great resource bank.

I have also written about informal learning in an earlier post 'Lift off for Informal Learning'.

‘Social Media for Trainers – Techniques for Enhancing and Extending Learning’ by Jane Bozarth (2010) Published by John Wiley.

This book has a very special place on my bookshelf, as it played a significant part in getting me into using Twitter.  I had taken it along to a workshop to share with some CLDP students, one of whom was already on Twitter.  Before the workshop started she tweeted Jane Bozarth and by the time we broke for morning coffee, we had had an answer back from Jane!  I was sold on Twitter from that moment!

The book is both great as a guide to key examples of social media – Twitter, Facebook, Blogs and Wikis and even better at providing many, many suggestions of how these can be used to enable learning.  These suggestions are set out so clearly, that you don’t need to be particularly tech-savvy to see how these can work and to give them a go.

‘Job Aids & Peformance Support – Moving from Knowledge in the Classroom to Knowledge Everywhere’ by Allison Rossett & Lisa Schafer (2007) Published by John Wiley.

Job aids & performance support are playing an increasingly important role alongside learning opportunities.  Performance support enables us to draw upon resources at the point of need to enable us to do a task efficiently & effectively.  This means that there are a whole range of work related tasks that we no longer need to learn in their entirety, but can rely on finding the resources to help us, either to prepare or to use during completion of the task.  At a time when there is more and more that we need to be able to do and constant change in the information we need to work with, it makes sense to not only use learning to meet these needs, but also performance support.  Sometimes learning on its own will be appropriate, sometimes performance support will be sufficient and sometimes both will be needed.  

Again, this book is packed out with examples & illustrations to enable you to see the possibilities and start to make use of them yourself.

‘The New Virtual Classroom’ by Ruth Colvin Clark & Ann Kwinn (2007) Published by John Wiley

I found this an invaluable guide to designing & delivering webinars/virtual classrooms ie usually short learning sessions delivered via the internet which bring learners at a distance together at the same time.   It provides excellent suggestions and tips for creating effective interactive webinars to meet different sorts of learning needs from computer based skills to knowledge & understanding  The book is all based very firmly on research and experience.   I have also found that it has influenced my practice in face to face delivery, as many of the points have a wider application.

I have also written about my own experience of webinars in a previous post, which you may find of interest 'My Learning About Webinars'. 

Each one of these five books has earned its place on my bookshelves.  With this collection to draw upon, there is no reason to limit yourself and your organisation to face to face learning in workshops and every reason to consider other options.

I would love to hear your comments on these book suggestions and also your own ideas.   What has been your experience of making use of these other learning methods?

Rachel Burnham

15/9/14

Burnham L & D Consultancy helps L&D professionals become even more effective.  I am particularly interested in blended learning, the uses of social media for learning, evaluation and anything that improves the impact of learning on performance.

Follow me on Twitter @BurnhamLandD