The Importance of Abstraction in Design
Visual Note-Taking
When you were at school I bet you anything that your literature teacher was the typical one who told you to do summaries of what you had read for homework. Why? Why you had to do such a useless thing? Well, as an almost grown-up designer, I can tell you this: it was for a purpose.
Being able to summarize or abstract a text or investigation is of great value because it lets you focus on relevant events relying in details only if needed. In the professional world, this allows you to communicate with your team and stakeholders using the most powerful key ideas for a project.
In design, abstraction is one of the strongest designer tools as it helps to synthesize and select the important ideas for taking the best decisions and solutions.
One of the top methods used in abstraction is taking visual notes that help you organize the information in a very comprehensive way, just using words and doodles. Sounds good, right? ;)
Start today!
As I said, visual note-taking is a fabulous way to activate your abstracting skills. So, if you want to become a pro in this field, you need to exercise a lot and start doodling from now on!
In my case I was given the assignment of sketch-noting a TED Talk* by Margaret Gould Stewart, Facebook’s director of product design. As it may look like a simple task, well… it’s difficult at the beginning, because you need to take notes in live while she is talking and it’s a bit stressing.
But don’t worry! You just need to relax yourself before the conference starts and then stay totally focused on the speaking as you write and doodle to accentuate the important ideas.
Then you must look at what you’ve done (do not get depressed if the result is as poor as mine) and organize the ideas in your head. Afterwards, you can initiate the “beautifying” and abstracting stage, which will result for sure in an amazing sketch-noting work!
*TED Talk: How giant websites design for you. https://youtu.be/Pv99Lu9Jzzs
