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.