Seduced by visuals or Why a picture is not always worth a thousand words



 I have attended dozens upon dozens of professional presentations, IT related or not, and after a while I started noticing how concepts, processes or outcomes are always neatly packed in some good looking graph, diagram or table. Those graphs, diagrams or tables are partitioned in eye pleasing proportions and the illustrated concepts, processes or outcomes are firmly encased in them. Most of the time, there are three or four partitions, equal in size, because this is what the page would hold or it is easier to draw.  The world is chaotic and hard to describe or illustrate. Sure a model of any kind needs to simplify things in order to communicate them. But I can't help wondering, isn't the author succumbing to the temptation of making order in the universe by collapsing stuff into those visuals, as opposed to writing a competent and complete text? Good text is more difficult to do, and even when it is good,  fewer may be willing or able to follow it. Text does not grab attention the way visuals do. But let's not shortchange ourselves: not all concepts, processes and outcomes fit into a pyramid, pie or rectangle. 

When it comes to serious teaching or learning, text can not be circumvented. Technical text has its own many pitfalls: verbosity, ambiguity, lack of structure, running sentences, are just a few common ones. An interesting one is the usage of acronyms and alliteration. I think some of these are forcibly used, just because it's catchy. Instead of insisting on the fit between word and meaning, many an author would go for the catchy. I have recently came across a professional article where the author found eight words starting all with the same letter, and dispatched them to describe the eight characteristics of a concept he was examining: dangerous, definitive, discretionary. I cannot remember the other five! Delinquent? No... Dishonest? No...I am rambling now in wrong territory as I remember the letter, not the content!

But let's look at the well used acronym S.M.A.R.T. Just these five attributes are the mark of good goals? Why not more or less than five? Is it a mere coincidence that these five, and only them, are the result of serious research, or is it here a degree of skewing the thinking because the acronym sounds good and is marketable? Specific (why not Simple? or Clear?), Measurable (ok!), Accurate (why not Exact? actually, how do we establish beforehand that a goal is accurate, and can it be? maybe suffices to say that it is thought to be reasonable or...realistic?), Realistic (some say Relevant, but are the two interchangeable? should both be retained despite sacrificing the acronym? and what about Actionable?), Timely (or Time related, well, maybe deadlines fall under Measurable). And what about Sustainable? Ethical? Ecological?

But I gravely digress, I was complaining about the complacency of visuals...


Last updated 2021 Jan 26

Image credit: https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2017/03/01/10/02/balance-2108022__340.jpg

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