visual aid

I’m reading the 2008 edition of Clay Christensen’s Disrupting Class. It’s been updated, but this is the version that the library had, and I’m glad for it. I hope the later edition improved the charts. There’s one early on:figure 2.1 in my copy; it sits at the top of the left hand page. It isn’t mentioned till the bottom of the right hand page so by the time I need to look at it, I need to start flipping back to reference the thing. It’s not a stand-alone image. I’d say it’s fairly inexplicable without text, and it’s dense, wiry nature leads me to believe it wasn’t necessarily aimed at visual thinkers.

Christensen references the chart later on. A chart from Clay Christensen's book.In the middle of a paragraph he mentions how the specific real world event being discussed would impact an axis on the chart. That, I imagine, is to clarify it. It was clearer to me without the chart references. Explanation is good, and I can only dream how clear this would be in an audio podcast/interview where Clay didn’t have any charts and was forced to explain things clearly. When I skip the chart references in the book, it’s fantastic. He starts each chapter with a short, well written real world scenario with text set in a contrasting sans font. It works perfectly.

I didn’t start a post just to give an outlier’s blast at Christensen’s excellent book; his charts just reminded me of work that I once had to do. I still don’t get it. A tech group was in the middle of plans focusing on network and hardware changes, authentication, and the impacts across a wide user base. I was brought in because the group had limited experience with graphics applications and thought I’d be able to help with their paper’s appearance. If your ‘visual aid’ needs several pages of explanation, maybe you should get rid of it and simplify your text instead? I was presented with a multi-colored, dense, inexplicable image – one of several they needed help with – and I was given a lengthy description of the chart. Actually, the paper the charts accompanied seemed to be an explanation of the chart rather than an explanation of a set-up, situation or event. I tried to understand, found myself taking up the groups time trying to get clarity when they only seemed to be able to make it worse, and decided to retire to my office to read, absorb and hopefully understand.

At my office I did a search on a few of the keywords that I pulled from the images and sure enough, I found much more of the same. Many of the items returned were pdf files at other universities and all of them had the same multi-colored, obtuse charts accompanying them. So there was precedence for the scientist’s images. They were in their familiar language. If I left them as is, they’d certainly fit in with the oeuvre. I made a few passes at clarification and had positive feedback, but a meeting in another city was far more important at the moment and work was shelved.

A really complex visual 'aid'.The image I’ve shared here is a simplification with, I hope, identifying features removed. I cleaned it up and added consistency of color, layout and iconography among all the separate images so understanding one would at least help in understanding the others. But in the end I failed to clarify to any great extent. This sort of chart—really, any illustration—if it’s to be effective requires complete understanding by the illustrator. The 1000 words that a picture is worth are added one by one with subtlety and nuance as well as flat out artistic design. Anything less and the visuals produced are a hindrance to understanding. If you illustrate, first understand: clear illustration should follow. If textual explanation of the visual aid is necessary, rewrite; consider explaining the idea better instead of explaining the image. Or hire a writer, too.