Semiotics has no secrets for us
Living immersed in the so-called knowledge society entails an unprecedented saturation of information. This has led certain sectors, such as advertising and the media, to look for alternatives based on new technologies to transmit in the most compact and fast way possible the information they want to disseminate, diagrams, infographics, mental maps, etc.
One of those solutions has been Infographics, visual representations that link text, graphics and non-linguistic signs as a summary or support of a information unit.
Using infographics in content development is already a common practice in our work methodologies. In addition, we have evolved the idea by incorporating active parts to generate feedback with the students and including mental maps as a summary of syllabi or as an exposition of complex theoretical or practical concepts.
Visual thinking allows us to express and model ideas through simple, easily recognizable drawings and diagrams, mentioned as a concept for the first time by Rudolf Arnheim's, has a tradition in human culture prior to writing and Its impact on the human brain is much more considerable than written communication which requires a greater degree of effort in its interpretation. Furthermore, with proper coding we can have a universal message above languages and languages.
Disseminated by the psychologist and coach Tony Buzan, the mental maps They are schematic representations of complex concepts that, using geometric figures, colors and drawings, are capable of exposing starting from a central complex idea and radially everything linked or related to that vertex. Used to manage tasks, presentations, complex multi-level lists, they are used by all types of professionals to improve project management, note taking or meeting preparation and are another approach to Visual Thinking complementary to infographics.
According to a report in the magazine Forbes, an average user is only able to pay attention for 8.5 seconds on a given content before losing interest. That is why it is crucial to incorporate attractive visual content.
