Business Communication: Developing Communication Skills through Visuals by Kitty O. Locker and Stephen Kyo Kaczmarek, titled “Using Visuals,” carefully illustrates how visuals help enhance business communication. This module emphasizes the life-changing power of visuals when they are used to share challenging information effectively and attractively by leading the readers through the process of choosing, designing, and adding visual elements to both written documents and presentations (Locker and Kaczmarek 416-425).
Data storytelling by Locker and Kaczmarek recognizes the fundamental nature of storytelling and the simplicity of data to discover critical stories. Among the tips that they give the readers are keeping to the point while providing precise results for the information and exploring trends that will draw the audience’s sentiments. Paired graphs are presented in the reading as two or more stories from subjects juxtaposed with the main focus on differences that illuminate or enhance each other.
The module helps us understand the principles of applying various types of visuals. This includes using exact values to fill out tables, pie charts showing part-of-whole relationships, bar charts comparing different items at different times, and line graphs demonstrating a trend. The sort of vision is chosen depending on the nature of the data and how the desired message is supposed to be conveyed. Thus, the visual is consistent with the information passed through the readers (Locker and Kaczmarek 418-421).
Emphasizing design conventions, Locker and Kaczmarek delineate the essential components of compelling visuals: a descriptive title that carries the story, an indication of the data, axes, and symbols are labeled up, and the imputing and data sources are brought into the epoch of the story. They can be essential in developing graphics that contain valuable information that is trustworthy and straightforward to be viewed by visitors (Locker and Kaczmarek 419-422).
The authors alert the reader that the colors and clip art may be prone to confusion and misinterpretation because there may be a mismatch of colors from different cultures. They employ the term “chartjunk’ to identify useless and decorative elements that are prone to distract or mislead the audience. In that regard, designers urge a precise and accurate design of visuals (Locker and Kaczmarek 421).
The module highlights the dangers of visual deception, such as limited and perspective graphs, which may give the reader the wrong picture of the data. Such patterns could be more effective and show zero sense of uniformity and integrity of the news. This is the main reason why they should be avoided.
The authors emphasize that visual presentation of the textual content is vital. Once done, leave a referral to the graphic before showing it. Before you display, let your audience know the basics of your visuals. Pick the level of discussion depending on the nature of each audience. This integration speaks about placing pictures and diagrams within the message body as communication elements rather than independent items (Locker, Kaczmarek p. 424, p. 425).
According to Locker and Kaczmarek, keep the visuals simple for presentations to enhance understanding and involvement. Tables can be complex. Hence, you can separate them into multiple visuals or make them look less complicated by rounding data or tweaking the format. Titling the presentation’s visuals will enhance their comprehensiveness and efficiency. Moreover, since numbers will be posted on the figures, a figure number will not be necessary, eliminating needless parts that will only confuse the audience.
In conclusion, Module 25 is a must-read source that gives you all the skills to incorporate visual media in business communication. Locker and Kaczmarek guide the readers with specific counsel on selecting well-chosen visuals, observing rules for optical clarity, avoiding deception, and constantly interacting the images with the text simultaneously. This part of the module underlines the significance of visuals in story-telling, where communicators learn how to develop interesting data-driven stories to deliver their messages in an informative and engaging way that promotes critical points.
Work Cited
Locker, Kitty O., and Stephen Kyo Kaczmarek. Business Communication: Building Critical Skills. 6th ed., McGraw-Hill Education, 2014, pp. 416-425
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