FOR CUSTOMERCENT

RICITY

90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual,

so isn’t it time you opted for a simpler and quicker

way to tell a compelling customer story in a way that

will stick? The written word alone can create a level of

uncertainty and ambiguity. This is where the power of

visualisation can play a fundamental role.

Visual thinking is becoming ever so popular yet there

is still so much untapped potential when it comes to

talking about customers, communicating about the

customer experience, and designing improvements.

In this article I want to make the case to bring a visual

angle to your view of the customer, and how you can

enhance communication with your colleagues.

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FOR CUSTOMERCENT

RICITY

Visual Thinking can play a

significant role in accelerating

learning, solving problems and

generating ideas.

A shared language

If I asked you to draw a house right now

the chances are you would draw 2 windows

either side of a door and a smoking chimney

regardless of whether you actually have a

house with a chimney or windows. This is

because you are conditioned to draw using

a universal language, a language that you

have used since you were a child. This

universal language enables working groups

to collaborate effectively. You can imagine

how powerful this is when visualising such

things as a customer journey, moving away

from abstractions that can be created with

the written word and finding a level of

alignment.

Blending Visual Thinking and Design Thinking

It’s no surprise that the best products,

services and customer experiences can

only be designed around the basic needs,

aspirations, emotions and motivations of

your end users. Far too often an organisation

focuses on maximising delivery with

Why visualisation?

As a design graduate, well versed in

methods of Design Thinking and Agile ways

of working, I make use of visualisation

techniques to support working groups to

cultivate group learning through pictures

whilst encouraging others to take to the flip

chart and draw.

That’s right — you don’t need to have

a design degree to visualise. When we talk

about visualisation what we are really talking

about is visual literacy.

As children we are often introduced

to literature in the form of picture books

and learn how to associate the pictures

with meaning by navigating the pictures

on a page way before we learn to read and

write. So when we refer to visual thinking

we are describing our ability to interpret,

comprehend, and express ideas by using or

creating visuals.

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G U E S T F E A T U R E

technical enhancements that are both feasible

and viable from a business perspective yet

fail to tick the desirability box. In certain

situations Agile teams might also be guilty of

maximising delivery and building the ‘thing

right’ yet failing to build the ‘right thing’?

binding what a group is thinking about

without influencing what is presented by each

individual.

It will be no surprise for you to hear that

visual thinking techniques can be explored at

every stage of the Design Thinking Cycle and

embedded as a common practice within Agile

teams. From the creation of rough low fidelity

sketches and prototypes to test and validate

design ideas, to the use of graphic metaphors

and templates during team retrospectives.

Whatever the method the key motivations

for visual thinking remain to generate ideas

and solve problems, offering fast effective

feedback and learning.

their birth at the Walt Disney Studio in the

1930s, they still remain an essential tool for

story sequencing and elaborating ideas before

investing in producing physical products and

services.

The beauty of a storyboard is the way

a reader will naturally follow the flow of

information from left to right and top to

bottom, narrating a process or journey from

beginning to end. You must ask yourself

what are the most salient points you wish to

communicate with an audience, and what the

key milestones are that you need to identify

along the journey. Having a limited number

of frames at your disposal is a helpful control

measure and a powerful way to emphasise

vital information.

“You’ve got to start with

the customer experience and work backward to technology.”

-Steve Jobs“Your story’s

moments should be like a dot to dot

puzzle. Remove one dot and you

change the shape

of the story.”-Scott McCloud

The first stage of Design Thinking focuses

on discovering a sense of understanding

towards the people that will use your

products and services. This discovery

phase requires an element of ethnographic

research which can take the form of dreary

documentation or engaging visuals that

paint a clear picture of customer needs.

Fortunately, there is a range of visual

thinking tools at your fingertips.

Dave Gray’s Empathy Mapping and

Strategizer’s Value Proposition canvas help

teams to collectively delve deeper into the

behaviours and motivations of end users.

The beauty of templates such as these is that

they embrace both divergent and convergent

thinking, offering individuals the opportunity

to share unique ideas whilst aligning a group

on a specific theme. Much like a framework

Storyboarding for communication

An increasingly popular Visual thinking

business tool is creative storyboarding,

which can be used to aid team alignment,

gain stakeholder engagement and keep

the customer at the heart of product and

service creation. Most commonly linked

to comics, storyboards expand on the use

of visual narration, where pictures trump

words as a more favoured method for

conveying information. Whilst comic art and

storyboarding have evolved somewhat since

So if you are faced with a user experience

problem or a potential issue with a current

process, introduce storyboarding within your

teams for a clear and captivating way to

present a business need and solve a customer

problem.

G U E S T F E A T U R E

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G U E S T F E A T U R E

Storyboarding a Customer Journey

You guessed it, what better way to visualise

a customer journey than a visual storyboard?

In the fields of user experience, service

design and design thinking, storyboarding

is applied as a way of recognising the needs

of an end user. By building a picture of

your customers' experiences you can walk

through current customer journeys frame

by frame, and identify key pain points

which can become levers for change leading

to desirable products and services. This

approach can be explored throughout the

fruition of a product lifecycle from gaining

customer insight, to testing the experience of

a new feature. Inspecting, adapting, pivoting

and persevering based on the needs and

motivations of your customers.

Useful Tips

Hopefully I’ve convinced you of the

power of visual thinking to improve

your understanding of customers, and

communicate persuasively with your

colleagues.

If you want to get started here are my top 3

tips:

• Communication over decoration - it’s not

about creating a masterpiece

• Simplicity is key - keep things simple, you

just need to communicate an idea

• Process over art - remember it’s about

collaboration and group learning

Stuart Young describes himself as a

Business Visualiser, Agile Enthusiast,

Design-Thinker and Empathy driven

storyteller. When Stuart is not assisting

businesses to simplify complexity through

live illustration he is facilitating a suite of

Design Thinking and Visual Thinking Skills

workshops that catalyse customer centric

creativity and innovation.

You can find him on:

LinkedIn, Twitter @Stuartliveart,

and stuart.young@radtac.com

Stuart Young

Innovation Practice Lead

Radtac

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