Visual clarity for engineers
This week I attended a very interesting workshop on "visual clarity". What does that mean? Almost every day, all of us face the situation of having to present ideas, …
This week I attended a very interesting workshop on "visual clarity". What does that mean? Almost every day, all of us face the situation of having to present ideas, sketch out processes or visualize elements of a conversation. But how do you do that best?
Holger Nils Pohl, one of the leading experts when it comes to "visual clarity", taught us the most fundamental basics of clear and visual communication for the first time. What makes a good sketch? How do I present my ideas visually? Which techniques and methods are there? These were all questions we discussed with Nils.
I was so excited about the way he did it that I really wanted to write a blog post about it. In my daily work, I often notice that people find it hard to communicate visually. Especially we engineers far too often give in to the temptation of presenting technical relationships in the most complicated way possible. Of course that's fun, but that's not how we can "sell" our ideas.
“"Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works."”
— Steve Jobs, Apple
Steve Jobs already knew that good design is essential for the success of products. A product is not always a physical thing. A product can also be an idea or a process. Nils's workshop was all about learning how to "phrase products visually" to make them easier for other people to understand.
In a few weeks I have the advanced course, and I'm already really looking forward to diving deeper into concrete methods and techniques.
So at this point: Thank you, Nils!
Did you know: When designing my website, I deliberately did without color, fancy visual effects etc.: I want to deliberately put the focus on the content. Nothing should distract from the actual content. Besides, this measure has an enormous effect on technical performance.