Thread by @RohanIrvine

Next presentation is Eva-lotta Lamm.
Visual literacy and visual fluency
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Eva-lotta is a visual thinker and is her preferred way of figuring out problems.

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She sketches with other people, for other people, and encourages people who say they hate sketching to sketch.

It's a great way to get to assumptions and have conversations you wouldn't necessarily get to with words.

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Eva-lotta started sketch noting because her memory was bad and she wanted to remember the topics she was interested in.

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Structural listening - even if you don't understand the content you can capture the structure of how people explain concepts.

This was from a DevOps conference

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Not all sketches are that elaborate

The thinking sketches are a stream on consciousness trying to unpack ideas.

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These are the sketches of communication for you to structure your thinking as you go.

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Literacy:
The ability to read and write

Visual literacy:
The ability to create visual communication

+ Visual fluency

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We are experts at consuming visuals.

We consume them every day, they tell us where to go and what to do.

It helps us understand d complex topics like climate change and space explorations.

We use them for navigation and orientation all the time

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We've gotten really visual with our communication but we are mostly selecting from a pre produced small set of visuals

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What do you do with the concepts that someone hasn't created a visual communicator for?

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In our society we see sketching and drawing as something children do. At some point the stop because the only other group is professionals with talent.

So we stop when we don't think we're good enough but when we decide we're not children.

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There's a lot of space in between these two points.

Eva-lotta says: You should fill it.

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When we start communicating the first thing we do is use our bodies, then we learn how to speak, then we learn how to write.

Drawing is the next layer of communication.

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Words and pictures are best friends, a powerful couple, they're better together

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Visual design is good for quick recognition of concepts and is robust at different levels fidelity.

Visuals can make a page quickly scannable.

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Visuals are great at being a me to show relationships.

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We interpret visuals every day and decide the relationship they have with us.

How far away is an object
What is that person coming towards me doing

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Spatial layouts like maps or floor plans let us understand space.

Temporal relationships let's us know how time overlaps

Organisational relationships let us understand who's connected with who

Conceptual relationships let us know how animals are connected
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If we just use basic shapes, sizes and spaces we can quickly comprehend concepts

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Sometimes ambiguity can be a problem and you need more context. That's when you bring words in.

They're excellent at detail and precision.

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Sometimes it's great to label, categorise and name language is amazing because sometimes the concepts need a group

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Words also allow you to frame and give context.

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It gives us a possibility to understand the message when we know where it sits and it's relationship to others

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Two best Friends.

Together they're amazing.

Design needs ambiguity to thrive
You can use words to slow people down

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Considerations when using visual and verbal
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Language is a set of common shapes that make a sound.

Visual language is having a set of common shapes that put together can express complex concepts.

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You can also explore what a visual language includes through these rules.

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Expressing the way we would talk with different speech bubbles
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Visual language can give an overview.
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You can use the overview to reveal more about the structure and narrative as you exited it.

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Visuals revelation patterns.

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This is the first line graph that is about 250 years old

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You can pack the visual full of interesting points.

When we see what is happening we can then ask WHY is it happening?

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Visuals can make things more memorable

They also make things more engaging

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Visuals have also started to be explored as a tool of persuasion.

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Visuals are versatile.

The more fluent you are with a language the more creative you can get with its application.

Reading books
Preparing talks
Preparing workshops
Sketching timelines and planning
Personal hobbies
Improv

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Eva-lotta wants you to build your sketching skills. The design work we do is becoming more complex and they're all complex relationships.

She's put together a very quick course for you to improve.

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