VizThink: Where do you start with visuals?

Tony Karrer wrote a post the other day wondering about the connection between visual thinking and e-learning. His questions were in relationship to the VizThink conference which will be held January 27-29, 2008 in San Fransisco.

The post has generated some very interesting conversation, and Tony asked some questions that I wanted to answer here, where I had more space and ability to add links and visuals.

I suggested Bob Horn’s book, Visual Language as a resource Tony might consider to learn about visuals. Xplane recently republished it and you can purchase it from them. The book is written in visual language, yet it uses clip art. Dr. Horn wanted to show how visual language works, but he wanted to make sure it was accessible ie: didn’t require drawing. I have heard people dismiss the book on the basis of it not being aesthetically pleasing enough, but I think they are missing the point. Not using fabulous visuals keeps the focus on the theoretical construction of the visual language components. This is a book I read and study over and over. There is an incredible amount of information on every page.

Here are some resources where you can learn more about the book.

• Sample pages from the book
• Interview with Dr. Horn talking about the book
• my post Visual Language republished by Xplane

Reading and writing visual language

In the comments on Tony’s post, Dave Gray says:

We “read” visual language all the time. It surrounds us, in the form of billboards, TV, road signs, car dashboards, internet screens, etc.

But how many of us can “write” visual language? I submit to you that visual language is not, and should not be, the province of designers, but is a core skill as we enter the coming century, maybe THE core skill.

So, reading Robert Horn’s book on visual language will help you read visuals better. And I believe you have to be able read, and SEE in order to effectively write.

Creating Visuals

We all know understanding something does not necessarily translate into an ability to do. And I think there must be a guild of mean parents and art teachers out there somewhere who have traumatized a huge number of people when they were young by telling them trees aren’t purple and to color inside the lines. So you do need to put all that early childhood trauma aside and be willing to try again. I KNOW you can do it, we all can.

Tony asks:

For me, once I start to go after the visual (ugly as they are), then I find myself changing the diagram, adding, etc. I’m never happy with it. So, I tinker. Pretty soon that visual depiction falls apart. So I wasn’t clear on what it should have been at the start.

Or maybe it’s not that simple? It’s more iterative?

You might stop too soon. I have produced FAR more really bad ugly stuff than things that work. It’s all part of the process. Have you heard salespeople say they have to get 10 (or 100) no’s for every yes. Sometimes we have to create a lot of yuck. Every so often, you hit right away. Hopefully over time, you hit sooner more regularly.

Sometimes it’s more like a focus group. You keep gathering the data until patterns emerge and you can distill the kernels that are most important.

Try this

If you really want to learn to work with visuals, you have to do it. Yes, I know the mean parents and art teachers who told you trees aren’t purple and your masterpiece didn’t look like your dog are whispering in your ears again. You’ve got to put them aside and decide to reclaim your ability to work with visuals.

Take an ordinary object from your daily life, say your keychain. Start to look at it, and begin to record the visual qualities of it. All of them. When you run out, keep going and find more. Aim for 100. The first 20 or 30 may be pretty easy, but keep going. I assure you if you do, you will see that keychain in a totally new way. And most likely everything else in the world also.

Visual Qualities you might look for include:

• Line
• Shape
• Texture
• Highlight & Shadow

Don’t worry if you don’t know what all of these mean. I’ll be talking more about them in later posts.

How do you do this? Anyway you want. If you really want to challenge yourself, do it with just a pen or pencil on pieces of paper. You can also do it with photography, painting, or the computer. Whatever works, it’s not about the media.

It’s also not about Art. This is quick, maybe even ugly stuff, that only takes a few minutes. Keep your keys on your desk, look over between tasks and see what you notice. Scribble something down. These ugly sketches of mine took less than a minute.

Why might you want to make a whole series of ugly drawings? Well, if you were a musician you might play scales to build your skills. If you’re a novelist you might write several drafts. This is a visual version of these types of processes. It’s not about the result, it’s about the process of looking, looking again, and continuing to look to discover new things way beyond when you think you’ve seen it all.

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I do hope you will join us at VizThink. If you use the code FCCM1 you can get $100 off your registration fee. I will be writing more about learning to think visually soon.