The Power of Visualisation

Question: Which of these images is easier to understand?

Kasturika

Published in

Design Tuesdays

3 min readJul 20, 2019

Tuesday, 16 July 2019

Hi there!

Visualisation plays a big role in design (and design thinking).

Why

Humans are hard wired to interpret visuals, with a large part of our brain focussed on just making sense of our surroundings (some fascinating numbers on this).
Unlike words, there’s very little that can get ‘lost-in-translation’ in images.
When conveying rich information, images take up far lesser space, both on paper/screen, and in our memory. Example: a spreadsheet with 100 rows vs a chart based on that data.

This space-saving nature of visualisation enables us to see the big picture, identify gaps, and form connections which may be very time-consuming to identify in, say, a 50-page report.

How

Paper / whiteboard + pen / pencil / marker / (insert your weapon of choice)

It’s fast, inexpensive, and low-fidelity. So, you’re unlikely to get attached to the outcome, and will be willing to iterate and/or discard it easily.
Simply because your brain is physically connected to your hands. Now I don’t have any scientific data for this (if you do, let me know!) — but this is something I have experienced. When I struggle with forming thoughts (words), I pick up a pen and start writing on paper. As crazy as it sounds, my hands seem to have a mind of their own, revealing thoughts, that I had no idea I had. Next time you’re stuck with something, you could give this a try — let me know if it works for you.

Digital tools

Digital tools work well for documenting and presenting visuals after the initial brain-writing / doodling.
Playing around with digital tools is fun, but without clarity on what you want to create, it can quickly become frustrating. Even the friendliest of interfaces cannot match the speed with which our brain works, and our hands move.

My tools

Paper and pen are my go-to tools. It is only after I have a clear picture of what I am doing, that I move on to digitising the visualisation.

I have experimented with several tools, and for the past few years, have begun using a browser-based tool called Whimsical.

I wrote an in-depth review of the tool on Prototypr: why I chose it, comparison with a similar tool, and why I continue to use it.

If you’d like, you can read the full review here (6 minute read). Or here’s a TL;DR: It has infinite canvas, is browser-based, supports collaboration and you can download hi-res artwork for offline storage.