Using Pictures To Explain Or Persuade

February 25, 2011

Interview with Dan Roam, author of the book The Back of the Napkin (Expanded Edition): Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures

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Mike Carruthers:
If you go to meetings much, you know that most of the time people talk and talk and talk and it can all be pretty boring. And yet…

Dan Roam:
The moment that someone pulls out a piece of paper and says, "Let me explain my idea with a picture," magic takes place in the room every single time.
 

Dan Roam author of the book, The Back of the Napkin...

The concept that can be represented by a picture is typically far more memorable and far more "sticky" than the same message delivered solely in words. And here's why: When we read a message or when we are told a story, it activates a lot of the centers of our brain and that's great. But primarily it focuses still on the verbal side. When we are also delivered a picture, we all of a sudden start activating completely different parts of the brain. So we actually get kind of a more "whole-mind" experience, if you will. Which means, guaranteed, we are more likely to understand the idea and more likely to remember it.

And Dan says you don't have to be an artist to do this.

I'm talking about pictures that are so simple - circles, boxes, arrows, smiley faces and stick figures - which we all can draw.

You will always be more effective if you incorporate drawings and visuals into a talk or explanation rather than just using words.

We are primarily visual creatures right from the day that we are born. It's almost the way we are programmed to think.