Visual communication is nothing but using visuals like charts, graphs, diagrams to represent information. Right from school, we see many visual communications in our books, we draw some in our projects. In businesses, these form one of the essential forms of communication, especially in presentations.
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Introduction to Visual Communication
Put up a graph or a chart, and suddenly everything you’re saying makes sense! Graphs or charts help people understand data quickly. Whether you want to make a comparison, show a relationship, or highlight a trend, they help your audience “see” what you are talking about.
The trouble is there are so many different types of charts and graphs that it’s difficult to know which one to choose. Click on the chart option in your spreadsheet program and you’re presented with many styles. They all look smart, but which one is appropriate for the data you’ve collected?
Can you use a bar graph to show a trend? Is a line graph appropriate for sales data? When do you use a pie chart? The spreadsheet will chart anything you tell it to, whether the end result makes sense or not. It just takes its orders and executes them!
Browse more Topics under Intro To Business Communication
- oncept and Features of Communication
- Importance of Communication
- Requirements for Effective Written Communication
- Effective Oral Communication
- Telephone Etiquette
- Non-Verbal Communication
- Principles of Business Communication
- Guidelines to effective Business Communication
- Johari Window
- Barriers to Communication
- Internal and External Communication
Visual communication forms:
Visual communication can be represented in the form of a graph, a map, a chart, a Vann diagram, a pie chart, a model, a table, or even multimedia like gifs, videos, and images.
Advantages of Visual Communication:
- Words are describing but they can be tiring to read through. Even listening to someone needs a visual aid to actually picture the information, especially if there are a lot of numbers involved.
- Imagine I am reporting to you about our company sales numbers and I relay every year’s revenue to you orally, my information is useful as you get to compare the previous month revenue with the next month, but the problem is to see the whole picture it is hard to remember so many numbers.
- Even if we did, it takes significant mind space that is unnecessarily wasted on capturing information. The idea of visual communication is to make this capturing of information easier for the audience so that they only have to observe and draw inferences.
- Visual communication makes the aesthetics of a presentation better. They not only are easier to read, but they also make the information more attractive to look at. Charts, graphs, tables, etc are color coded making them easier to perceive. Imagine numbers thrown on a sheet vs numbers visually arranged on the sheet using shapes that are easier to comprehend. A human brain can only take in limited information and that should definitely not go into making sense of information. That should go into why the information is being presented to them in the first place.
- Visual communication supports the audio mostly. The literal aim of an ideal visual communication should be to not need any other communication at all. This way it’s optimized well. But Visual communication goes hand in hand with verbal communication to explain what inferences are to be drawn from it.
Solved Questions for You
Question: In the following table, find out what is happening on 17th December 2018 and where?
| Date | Event | Time | Venue |
| 16-12-2018 | Pottery workshop | 7:00 pm | Ambedkar maidan |
| 17-12-2018 | Paintball | 8:00 am | DPS School playground |
| 18-12-2018 | Stand-up comedy | 6:00 pm | IIT Bombay |
| 19-12-2018 | Karaoke | 7:00 pm | Mia Cucina |
Solution:
From the table above, on 17-12-2018, there’s a Paintball event at 8 am on DPS School playground.
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