1. INFORMATION TAKEN FROM “BUSINESS COMMUNICATION” BY; FRATLEY, RENTZ, & LENTZ Understanding the Visual Communication Process

2. Similarities of Writing & Visual Communication Process Both processes include; 1&2 Planning Gathering & Collecting 3&4 Analyzing & Organizing Choosing a Form 5&6 Placing & Interpreting Evaluating

3. Planning Visuals serve one main purpose-to communicate-and you should use them primarily for that purpose. Your planning of visuals should be based on determining what to communicate and how to do it.

4. Planning Visuals can help clarify complex or difficult information. Such as;  Illustrating relations  Revealing trends  Patterns  Outliers  Emphasize facts  Add coherence  Summarize data  Provide and keep interest

5. Planning Visuals supplement your writing & speaking-not take its place. They emphasize and clarify important points, as well as, the details. But the words should carry the main message.

6. Gathering & Collecting The information represented in visuals should be what you want your audience to remember after reading or listening to our presentation. You may need to mine data (information you already have on hand or, You may need to gather new data for examples relevant to your audience.

7. Gathering & Collecting The time and money you spend on gathering information or creating a visual should be balanced in terms of the importance of the message you want to convey.

8. Analyzing & Organizing The next step in the process is to analyze the information you want to present and determine how best to organize it for your audience.

9. Analyzing & Organizing The tools that are available in today’s workplace help writers filter the vast amounts of data that are collected and stored regularly.

10. Analyzing & Organizing You should ask the following questions as you analyze and organize you information.  Which data will you emphasize?  What colors will convey the information best?  When should it be presented?  Will the visual be appropriate for the audience? All these are matters that you will decide using a problem solving approach.

11. Choosing a Form You should choose visuals appropriate to both the content and the context where they will be presented.

12. Choosing a Form You should include any kind and of visuals that will help the reader or listener understand the document or presentation quickly, easily, and completely.

13. Choosing a Form You need to review the information that your document or presentation will contain, looking for any possibility of improving communication of your message.

14. Choosing a Form This can be done by looking for complex information that your visual presentation can clarify For information too detailed to be covered solely in words. For information that deserves special emphasis.

15. Choosing a Form Remember, each piece of information you are trying to convey may require a different type of visual. By looking carefully at the words in your document or presentation, you should be able to determine what form of visual expression is best for your audience.

16. Placing & Interpreting Placement can be critical!  If “small” place it after the reference.  If “large” it should follow the first statement reference. Placing all visual in an appendix does not help the readers. They have to stop and flip or click to the information referenced. Common sense requires that you place visuals in such a way as to help readers understand the words.

17. Placing & Interpreting Exceptions There are some exceptions in which the information overall is pertinent but not specific to what is being presented Or the summary charts and tables apply to the entire document but to no specific place in it. These should be placed at the end of document or presentation or in an appendix and then be referenced to somewhere in the document.

18. Placing & Interpreting Visuals are most effective when seen at the right place and time. You should tell them when to look at a visual and what to see. Examples;  …..as shown in Figure 4 …….  ……indicated in Figure 4 ……  …..as a glance at Figure 4 reveals…..  …..(see Figure 4)…..

19. Placing & Interpreting If the words are carrying the primary message, you might start with a reference to the chart followed closely by a thorough interpretation of the referenced information.

20. Placing & Interpreting Your audience will appreciate well-chosen, well- designed, and well-explained visuals, and you will achieve powerful communication results.

21. Evaluating Visuals must be evaluated for their integrity, their accuracy, their clarity, and their audience appeal. You are ethically bound to present data and visuals in ways that enable readers and listeners to interpret them easily and accurately.

22. Evaluating Avoiding Common Errors By being aware of some of the common errors made in presenting visuals, you learn how to avoid them as well as how to spot them in other documents. Even when errors are not deliberately created to deceive a reader, they cause loss of credibility – casting doubt on all the work you may have completed.

23. Evaluating Misrepresenting information You need to be careful when choosing the information to represent and the visual elements to represent it. Look at;  Is it age appropriate?  Is ethnicity represented appropriately or manipulate emotions?  What about volume and size?  Are visuals presented accurately, free of distortion or alteration?  Have photos been cropped to be consistent with the context?

24. Evaluating Scale distortion Errors of scale include problems with uniform scale size, scale distortion, and zero points. Scale distortion occurs when a graph is stretched excessively horizontally or vertically to change the meaning it conveys.

25. Evaluating Holding Attention The visuals need to be assessed for their ability to hold the readers’ or listeners’ attention and to help retain information. It is critical that you choose the right visual for the circumstances.