Visual Communication: Presenting Your Point
Effective visual language is about more than just your writing skills. If you want your message to reach the widest possible audience, you need to diversify your communication skills beyond writing and speaking. Visual elements are great ways to convey messages in creative and accessible ways.
Regardless of background or experience, visual aids can draw people in and massively improve engagement. In fields ranging from graphic design to healthcare, visual media widens audiences and makes complex messages as accessible as possible.
Visual aids are often culturally and linguistically inclusive, and they demand less of a person’s time than a wall of text. Utilizing visual communication as a resource for marketing and education is a great way to expand the effectiveness of your message. Regardless of what field of business you are in, visual communication is a great way to better reach your customers and employees.
Here is an overview of what visual communication is and how you can use it effectively in your life.
What Is Visual Communication?
Visual communication can take a variety of forms, including video presentations, slideshows, and educational posters. You can use visual media to educate people in ways that are interesting and memorable.
For example, when onboarding a new employee to your business, you could send them a pdf document that goes on for hundreds of pages dictating every aspect of the company and their role in it, but chances are they wouldn’t make it very far.
Written text that goes on that long simply doesn’t hold a person’s attention, especially if they didn’t find the content overly interesting.
Instead, visual presentations could be made that carefully walk the employee through every onboarding process and get them acquainted with how the business works.
A color-coded poster that provides an overview of the chain of command could be combined with an audio-visual presentation on the employee code of conduct.
By putting in that effort, the employee better understands their worth and the importance of the messages being told through these mediums. In addition to that, they are more likely to retain these messages and follow your guidelines more closely.
A mental connection is made to visual aids that simply isn’t made with text, making it a better way to communicate important information to your team.
Be Accessible
If you want to reach a diverse audience, then your visual aids need to match that sentiment. There are many ways that you can create visual media that can convey messages to people who would have otherwise been unable to connect with your content. When including text on your visual media, consider using a text size that accommodates people who don’t have 20/20 vision.
It is also a good idea to choose the colors of your text wisely so that color doesn’t get in the way of the visuals, regardless of any visual impairments.
If the option is available, including audio descriptions of your visual media can also widen its audience, while text descriptors on video and pictures can enhance it as well.
It is also worth considering the simplicity of visual media. You can scale back the details in favor of making the broad strokes of your message as clear as possible since that is the focus of visual communication.
Using cross-cultural symbols and pictures that flow naturally and easily allows people to connect with your content even if the media is in a different language. All of these are ways to focus on a broader audience and improve your reach.
There are messages that your business will want to send to as many people as possible, and appealing to a diverse range of people will maximize your potential in that area.
Only Use the Important Stuff
Using visuals cuts out the fluff and boils a message down to its most essential aspects. You can use this to your advantage by accenting statistics that stand out in a report using a color-coded graph or another graphic that visually shows off the numbers in question.
Even if your audience hasn’t been acquainted with the outcomes you are showing off, an impressive graph or table will draw their eye and get them interested in what you are doing.
Once your audience is interested, you are more likely to see engagement when more detailed; text-based documents are sent their way.
In training, you can choose the most important lessons for your employees to learn and make sure those are portrayed graphically.
Of course, you still need to make sure they have access to all the rules and regulations of your business, but visual communication can make sure that these lessons stay in their minds and aren’t forgotten once they’ve signed all of their documents.
These visual products can also be turned into posters that the employee can have, which they are much more likely to keep visible than a copy of the code of conduct.
Use Visual Communication Strategies Liberally
Visual communication doesn’t have to be relegated to marketing initiatives and employee training. If you are in a position to stay in regular virtual contact with your employees, go above and beyond the usual text and slack messages and present information daily.
With an app like Dialed, made by the creators of Burner, you can manage your target audience and your network and send mass messages to customizable groups. You can set up marketing visual aids weeks in advance and schedule them to be sent to all of your customers, and you can make sure every employee is on the same page and gets regular updates on project management and planning.
Dialed uses a lot of visual communication to help you keep track of all your team members, allowing you to use labels that show your relationship to each individual and their level of importance.
You can classify your VIPs and make sure you send them the right messages and convey the correct information. It is a great tool to use in conjunction with visual communication that keeps your entire network on the same page and expands your marketing opportunities.
In conjunction with connective resources like Dialed, visual communication enhances your ability to get your message across to a vast audience.
Conclusion
Using visual communication design will allow you to improve your training, marketing, and reporting initiatives. Regularly communicating using visual media that is concise and accessible means you have the opportunity to expand your audience and build out your business.
Use tools like Dialed if you want to ensure that the visual aids and presentations you create are being utilized to their maximum potential by your network of contacts. By being aware of the resources at your disposal, you can make sure that your method of visual communication is visible and accessible.
Use Dialed to manage your contacts, categorize your team members, and unveil marketing aids.
Sources:
Visual Communication Resources | CDC
What is the impact of visual communication? | MVOrganizing
The Value of Visual Communication: Inform, inspire and motivate audiences | Beehive
5 Examples of Effective Visual Communication in the Workplace | Organimi
