Visual Thinking 101: How to sell your ideas better
Drawing as a language: Visual thinking?
I promised myself the moment I started to write this story, to not dig into the proven cognitive benefits that images have over the brain in terms of neuroscience. What I want to cover here is related to the interpretation, storytelling and communication part of how we use and interpret images. As well as how to use them to your advantage in many ways — from selling ideas to your peers in your organization to defining products and communicating effectively with clients.
How can it be used
First things first, Visual language is defined as a system of communication using visual elements. Every one of us can sketch, that’s a gift we all bring into this world. Any toddler can doodle a tiger, or a giraffe pretty easily.
In my case, I always find myself doodling while in meetings, I always say it helps me to think and focus. I got a small notepad some while ago that was my best friend while commuting. It’s fun, helps you to refresh your focus, to see any problem from a different angle, while also thinking visually. So, one day while at the office, I was faced a problem. A product that combined many, crazy, different things in it (a mix of software, hardware, top notch innovation), that I needed to step back and first focus on understanding it. Then to distill and detail, to set boundaries and decide what’s important and what’s not, in other words decide where to start. So, I tried something different. I opened my iPad and just started to sketch.
That was the moment when I drew my first sketched user journey. First, I thought that a sketch could get me closer to the problem itself, while helping me to understand all the different components involved in the solution idea. But, when I presented my train of thought to the client, he started to react to it, which created a different conversation. Complexity was put aside and the discussion was based more on WHY, than the HOW. When the meeting ended I was thrilled, I realised the power of my sketched user journey in terms of communication, the impact of sharing expectations from scratch was a breakthrough to me.
From there I kept sketching to communicate and without even noticing it, I was starting to craft my brand new visual communication skill.
My process
From when I started to now, I have sketched probably more than 40 individual pieces. Lots of experimentation which was just unstructured fun at first and eventually became a useful service over time. At some point, people started to demand sketches, asking things like, “Hey Mateo, when do you estimate you can have something to present to the client?”, “We have an RFP with a hard due date this week…”, and so on. At first those questions weren’t easy to answer. So, I embarked on defining a process that helped me to estimate how much effort the job would take, that allowed me to offer sketched journeys as a service.
So, let’s jump to the series of steps I execute to complete them.
Step 1 — Before even thinking about the first straight line, I prepare my mind for a thinking process for the product or idea. If I need to sketch a product idea, I use a storymap (a process/technique developed by Jeff Patton), to map a product, based on user perspective. I use it mostly to start gathering some pain points and/or insights and nurture my sketched user journey.
Step 2 — Once I have the storymap ready, I create a list of six or seven key user interactions with the product or service
Step 3 — Where the fun starts — Sketching time!. I usually center the branding, to focus all my attention on the middle of the sketch, and draw some different areas (clockwise) for each item of my list.
Step 4 — Brainstorm images. Now that I have the branding right in the center of the canvas, I use it as inspiration to start thinking about visual representations for each item in my list, not forgetting the message I want to share with the person who is looking/reading the sketch.
And boom! That’s it! The sketched user journey is done, ready to help you to achieve your goals!
Benefits and key takeaways
Emotional Intelligence — Looking at images activates the emotional intelligence in people, unlocking different points of view in the same situation.
Empathy — To tell the story and generate impact, it is extremely important that the sketched user journey is focused on the user experiencing the product or service.
Shared understanding — People tend to see and decode the world with their own lenses, based on their own experience. Instead of words, an image creates a collective understanding and interpretation that helps deliver the right message.
Buy-ins in your organisation — This technique can be used to sketch your next innovative idea, and generate buy-in from your boss, other departments, or even map out the next step in your career.
Selling artifact — Use it as a differentiator. When presenting a sketched user journey to a client, you’re demonstrating professionalism, compromise, and understanding the problem that will level up conversations with them, focusing on what’s important.
I included a Timelapse video at the end of the article, to learn a little more about the process I follow.
Now what?.. Grab a piece of paper, a whiteboard or an iPad and start doodling!!! :D
