Visuals in Training - Why They're Important & How to Improve Your Skills

Visuals in Training

Why They're Important & 

How Amateurs Can Improve Their Skills

Introduction

Visual Importance

        When I taught high school I would hear the groaning as it arose from every student. I tried to draw maps, visuals, and anything else I thought would work on the board. Since I can remember - at least as far back as high school, I self admit that I cannot draw and that art - in terms of painting, sculpting, etc, was not a strong suit for me. Heck, I cannot even draw a decent looking stick figure. However, despite that lack of skill I firmly advocate the use of visuals in training & education in any setting, on any level. Visuals mark off important times in our lives - who doesn't carry in their mind a photograph or visual memory of a particularly fun party, a wedding, the birth of a child, a death of a loved one, a sudden unexpected road trip. Visuals come in many shapes, sizes, and styles, and they not only provide us with memories of an event, the help us retain certain information and even apply what we know or learn out in the "real world" beyond our minds. Visuals give our brains shape, form, some might say even directions to the ideas we come up with or the concepts we learn, as well as the capacity to practice skills that require some sort of spatial reasoning. Don't send me to a medical student for blood work that doesn't know my elbow from my knee.  Visuals provide us with a way to mark off space in the world as well as more easily store and recall information as needed.

Lack of Visuals in Training

         Unfortunately, lots of training and education today does not include the use of visuals - by either instructors or by learners. Our continuing emphasis on memorization as well as repetition, some might even say regurgitation, of knowledge comes with many costs. One of those is the time to practice and apply the skills and knowledge we learn. From a business perspective, lots of companies - especially those in older and/or more conservative industries - retail - finance - real estate - don't imagine training to be more than the "expert" or trainer sharing the wisdom or going over the material. Perhaps, they may even have the folks read  something before or after class and maybe even use an online assessment. When developing training - there's also barriers in the way sometimes - if training isn't centralized in one location inside of an organization there could be a lack of resources or a lack of collaboration. If the department is small or demands too high - the time needed to develop even basic visuals may not seem available to those developing the training. Or, perhaps the company or organization lacks a history of good training and the leaders and/or employees don't get the feedback and/or buy-in they need to create authentic training that effectively builds real skills and solve business issues. I know in my own experience the biggest obstacle I face is myself. I've got that ingrained critical voice that says I don't know how to make visuals and combine that with a lack of opportunities to actually make them and poof - I hold myself down and stop my brain from re-learning how to think visually.

Creating an atmosphere for visuals in training

        If you find yourself in a setting were visuals are not used often or consistently as part of a training regime, consider starting small. Incorporate just the best ones and limit their use. Start off training sessions or an activity where you plan on using a visual by having learners share their own memories or stories about a visual. Specifically, try and focus their comments or the discussion on visuals they use maybe even still use today to help them perform a task. Stimulating this sort of prior learning will help them adopt and understand your use of visuals more easily, not to mention hopefully help hold their attention. If there's a history and culture that allows for the use of a pre-assignment or even directions that go out ahead of time, ask participants to bring with them a copy of a visual they love or use to do their job or perform a certain task.

Learning to Create Visuals

Starting Small

• What's the old analogy - you must first learn to crawl? Well, if you find yourself out of practice making visuals or tend to shy away from incorporating them into your training, or if you feel like I feel and can't stop your self-doubt or inner critic from holding you back - start small. Begin building your "visual library" by drawing simple things. Basic objects like a book or table, people - even stick figures in different poses, places - well known enough for anyone to know the objects, titles on pages or slides, containers such as boxes around text, pitchers for flowers, etc all these things can help you start to think visually and give you the chance to practice creating in a visual environment. As you progress, try incorporating and then differing simple color patterns. 
• Remember, the point is for you to practice drawing. Visuals in a training capacity are meant to help clarify ideas, give scaffolding as learners embrace new concepts or link seemingly unrelated factors together, or to give a point of reference in time or space that a person can us when performing a specific task. You---,you are not creating a work of art. Even the most basic or simplistic of visuals can help enhance a training activity or program and allow the learners to retain a/o recall information better.

Group Exercises

• If you find yourself talking with some friends, colleagues, random acquaintances, whatever, and there's group consensus about a want for people to improve their visual thinking and/or their visual creativity, group exercises work. The provide an atmosphere to receive immediate feedback, as well as accountability to actually practice what needs practicing.
• One easy group activity for improving visual creation and creativity takes shape as "chat, listen, draw".  You need three people in a group and each person in a group takes a turn at each position. Each round, one person tells a story (chat), one person listens to the story, asks questions, tries to get clarification, asks for more details on a specific subject (listen) while the whole time someone is trying to draw the story as it's being told and retold. (draw) This works not only because of the demand to draw, but because the person drawing isn't telling the story and therefore must think rapidly, and the storyteller is not encumbered with a script and can challenge the person drawing. And, unknown to many, the listener actually improves their skills because they can critique the drawing, even if only to themselves, as it's being done and a good part of creating outstanding visuals is weeding story information and details and gaining clarification.

Improving Visual Thinking and Production

More Simple Ideas

• If you find yourself wanting even more practice creating visuals but either can't or don't want to dive into Photoshop or create visuals directly for your training program or activity, then try these techniques:
• Note-taking. Yes good old fashioned note-taking as well as some other visual organization schemes that you may pick up in high school, college, or a professional course represent a simple yet effective way to practice visual thinking and visual(s) creation. Little things like going through and writing in different styles, highlighting, creating a schema or organization, can all help you improve your visual acuity.
• (Strategic) Doodling. Yes, you can doodle and learn at the same time. Find a meeting, a class, or another opportunity during your day/week that you dread, don't understand, or sit passively through. Use that time to doodle and create visuals based off of the material presented, ideas shared, maybe even the physical space your find yourself in. If you boil it down what you find yourself doing through this, surprisingly, is controlling your imagination. An important aspect of creativity and visual thinking lies in the capacity to control one's thoughts and to focus. Instead of using the time to zone out, create your grocery list, or re-hash the latest office gossip or situation that got you upset - doodle - and doodle with a purpose.
• Re-doing slides. Lots of people create slides decks. You can find them all over the web for free. Download a whole bunch, especially the ugly ones, and get to work. It may seem pointless or boring, especially if you really don't need to create a PowerPoint at work - the intern, the graphic artist on the training team, the person in marketing - someone else does it for you. But, by doing this for yourself, you can train yourself to think better so even if you never need to do your own, you might find yourself a new friend and colleague if you provide clearer, more precise directions for the person creating it or if you can help them avoid burning out as you can actually give them a starting point of what you are looking for in a given deck. As any graphic designer will tell you - they do actually care about the content - even if just enough to make the presentation make more sense - so those people with a more precise idea, who therefore help reduce the number of edits or redo's they go through, get special treatment. Once you gain enough proficiency, even slide decks that follow the basic rules can always use a little more pizzazz, consistency, or just a splash of color here or there. 

More Practice

• Looking for other ideas? First, define your needs. Do you create PPTs or e-learning courses? Do you work with designers who build banners, mailers, business cards, or websites? Knowing what you need to improve upon helps focus your efforts. Likewise, knowing what you want (to do faster, better, on your own) can help direct and focus your own personal development efforts. I need to start learning how to create infographics and to convey ideas and concepts through a blended approach between text and visuals while reaching a point where they can pass as basic professional work. Why? because as training ramps up across industries, I want to be able to help improve my overall skills set, I want to create more interactive and engaging courses, I want to learn how to sell training better as part of the organization's strategy.
• Storyboarding. A big part of training development, instructional design, and lots of other professions is storyboarding. People with certain degrees, um, tend to look down on this. Well - that's your fault not ours. Storyboarding is an essential part of everyday life in the development of effective training. So, if you are looking to improve your visuals - try storyboarding. Draw on the large board in the nearby conference room. Draw on the huge flip chart in your office or cube. Just draw - and big. And, draw like you would - or if you don't have experience - like you think someone would - as part of a storyboard. Why? To help focus your ideas and keep your mind working and working in a logical manner. Practice is great - but practice without purpose or understanding can be ineffective.
• Other visual activities. There are plenty of other visual activities you can try as part of your development. Try creating a map - start by outlining countries or start by drawing a map from scratch. Going back to the slide deck idea - create your own from scratch - or create your own template(s) from scratch for use in different settings or different industries, etc. Charts & graphs. Learn to use excel a little or just create them on graphing paper. Take stats from your favorite sport - or your favorite activity - and graph them. Create simple charts. Learn to make numbers or data concepts more easily accessible.
• Go digital. It's easier to muse or to create simple stuff by hand. But, most professional work gets done digitally, so to meet expectations, you will eventually need to transition over to the computer anyway. There are lots of free applications out there that allow you to practice creating different types of visuals  such as Google Drawing, the standard paint or photo editing program on your computer, Jing, Prezi, Slideshare, Doceri, Mural.ly, Video Scribe.
• Sketch your favorite lecture, presentation, Ted Talk, etc. There's a topic or subject area that's close to our heart. Each and everyone - even if it's buried or you and noone you know finds it practical and useful, has a passion that sparks curiosity and interest. And, there's plenty of free stuff out on the web. So, listen or watch the lecture or program, and sketch away. Don't try and compare yours to the RSAnimates out there. Trust me that's not a fair comparison for you. Just do your best and allow that passion to drive you to practice.

Beyond the Basics

Group Work

• There are lots of ways to continue to build your skills that involved other people. Sometime, all it takes is a little imagination (which is what we are worried about using anyway) and some initiation.
• Add a brainstorming session to a meeting at work or create a collaborative activity for storyboarding a new course.
• Volunteer to help create an activity or lead a topic at a professional development course or a meeting. For training folks, local ASTD chapters are all about this.
• Try a simple game of pictionary with friends.

Individual

• Instead of using MapQuest or Google to create a map for you as you drive somewhere - create your own. Especially if you have GPS why worry - what do you have to lose?
• Create an outline, especially if you don't consider yourself an outliner, for each day one week or for a list of things to do for a major event.
• Create your own postcards, photos, thank you cards, etc. Even if they turn out badly think of the money you could save and use that as a way to compel you forward.

In conclusion - hopefully some of this advice will help. I've purposefully did not include visuals in this blog entry so that if you chose to, you can use this outline as a way to get started - either by reorganizing it or by creating your own visuals for it.