Picture Thinking, designing web thinking in pictures

picture by cogdogblog

Almost all of creative, but also business-men with more rational logics, are able to do it. Visual thinking can increase the Web Design productivity

Using pictures it’s possible to thinking, acting, designing and planning. This is what almost all the people working in the creative sphere, but it can also be applied to managers and business-men who have more rational logics. Brain thinks in pictures. It always does that, it’s a natural process of acquiring information, so you can design with pictures. This century is characterized by the development of the media TV, internet, game, various advertising, subliminal images (present in the early films of the years 20). Everything we developed in recent years is based on a visual learning method. The taste for beauty is based on our mental images.

The creation and modification of mental images is automatic and continuous, our brain perceives sensorial stimulus and, on the strength of our experience, is able to group them into information units (chunks). The chosen elements generate images, which can be called in any context, creating a behavior. Once stored, the mind has only to recall the mental images in order to activate independently, without the consciousness intervention, the execution of that particular procedure.

The mental image involves an interpretation of the experience meaning and a chance to drive the planning of actions and strategies, projected into the future.

This preface introduces us to the visual design scope. Known by many creative in motion-picture scope. StoryBoards are a blatant example. The storyboard is a designed script, the visualization of a direction’s idea. This process, which is growing in the United States, has as a maximum adviser Tom Wujec, recently present at the View Conference, one of the unquestioned authority of this learning method that is based on analyzing how the brain creates meanings, which in semiotics Latin identified as aliquid stat pro aliquo (something that refers to something else).

“Think and act by images is a learning method that can be applied with impressive results in the world of Web design”

Why?
This is the key question on which the design process is based on. Many have noted in the introduction that the statement “something that refers to something else” is the peculiar logic of hyperlink.
This is in short designing for images. Linking a wherefore to a series of responses creating a logical correlation.

“If a designer wants to realize why the objects are what they are, he will examine all its possible aspects… functionality, maneuverability, color, shape, material …”.

This is a Bruno Munari remark, a completed designer, contained in his book “Da Cosa nasce Cosa” published in 1980, a real design lesson, clarity, synthesis and efficacy.

People with autism think in pictures, words are a second language for them. The mind becomes a memories video library and to create they retrieve the pieces from memory combining them into a whole new way. Autistics have problems learning things that can’t be translated into images, like abstract subjects. The nervous system has a remarkable ability to compensate when it’s damaged and in autism it’s possible that the visual system has expanded to compensate for the verbal deficits and sequencing. An indicator of visual thinking as the primary method of information processing is the remarkable ability of many autistic people to solve puzzles, find the way around a city and store huge amounts of information very fast.

The evolution of thinking in images is to do it without writing texts. But drawing or, rather, representing ideas in a communication process (the traffic light is red so I stop the car).
Connoting our thoughts flow in the moment of creation and development of any project. In brainstorming phase, after the brief acquisition and interface development … any project area can be managed with this visual process rather than the linear one, making two very important things:

1. Saving time, images are faster than words and contain more meanings. Every time someone asks you a question, a request or simply talks to you, you automatically transmute it into a picture. Then your brain, which is certainly faster than any type of rendering, visualizes your idea.


2. Flourishing correlations and creative ideas in a very really fast time.

A graphical interface composed of icons and images of simple concepts makes possible to interact, as happens in the real world, passing clear and intuitive meanings on. This is an excellent affordance, functionality and functioning are quickly deduced, creating a simple and immediate connection with users. The graphical interface should be attractive and functional at the same time, each item must be placed at the right point, but without overdoing it, saving time.

Speed ​​is one of the key focal points to be able to be reactive to demands in the world of the Web. Everything runs very quickly and the ability to adapt for designers and those involved in strategy is essential. A study conducted by Autodesk transformed the long and exhausting meetings (as I well know), that can last months to make an important decision, in a few weeks of collaborative visualization. Saving frustration, time and money.

There are three key focal points of this attitude:

1. Representing your ideas in a visual way to increase learning


2. Building visual prototypes that promote conversation, interaction and choice


3. Creating real paintings and panoramic pictures of your ideas flow to strengthening the memory, single if you’re alone and memory-group in case you’re a team.

I have seen various methods, in experimentation there are digital desks (like giant iPad) that create visual correlations. I suggest you an incredible economic method derived from the old logic design that I use often and that comes from a story about the Russians and the Americans.
It tells: Americans spent 4 million dollars to design an ink pen that can write in zero gravity in space. Russians used a pencil.

If you are novice designers or business-men from several million euros this can be done with simple Post-it. Why the Post-it? Because they can be detached and attached countless times.

“What is the best technique and how does it work?”

Starting from the basic question you have in mind … I have to draw a new social network, I have to implement a script … whatever it is. Draw or write it on a Post-it and attach it to the wall in front of you. Post-it questions that you must answer to get a visual correct stream are:
Who, what, where, how, when, why, how.
As a last input I show you an intervention of Tom Wujec in Ted Talks.
3 Ways the Brain Creates meaning.