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We all know the saying ‘a picture says a thousand words’. When applied to business strategy, it could become a “picture is worth three hours of meetings, or 20 back and forth emails”. The point is the same, visual thinking strategies are a great way to convey complex information and ideas.
Why? Because the brain processes images, drawings and infographics much faster than words. This can help speed up and simplify ideation, communication and information sharing. In business, this strategy is called “visual thinking”. It’s being used by businesses globally to brainstorm new products, understand the connection between data and create prototypes.
But, with the current pandemic seeing many teams working remotely, it’s more important than ever to adopt strategies and routines to allow visual thinking to continue in a collaborative manner in an online environment.
Conceptboard’s collaborative online whiteboard allows you to strategize visually in real-time with your entire team on its infinite digital canvas. Plus, we’ve done the hard work and created a diverse library of visual templates across all business sections.
So, let’s take a look at some of the best visual thinking strategies you need in 2023 and how you can do it all on Conceptboard.
Customer Empathy Map
For marketers, empathy is a key step to better understanding their customers. A Customer Empathy Map is the perfect tool to collect, collate and structure data so that you can clearly see what customers want — not what you think they want. By using this visual template, you can systematically find answers then share them with your entire team. The result = a product or service that not only meets but exceeds your customer’s expectations.
Start customer empathy mapping!
Low fidelity prototyping
Low-fidelity prototypes are basic representations of concepts that help to validate those concepts early on in the design process, before investing too much time or money. Simple prototypes focus on the concept without getting distracted by minor details such as appearance and style. They generally present the design ideas as a workflow, allowing you to test the user interface (UI) in a visual manner.
Start co-creating visually with your team today!
Try out Conceptboard’s whiteboard to create your low-fidelity prototypes. Use built-in sketching tools, shapes, arrows, digital sticky-notes and more. And best of all, your entire team can join in real-time, making it a truly collaborative exercise.
Moodboard
A mood board is often the first step when fleshing out the design and style of an idea. Mood boards are visually beautiful collections of images, textures, colors and text that combine to present an idea or a certain feeling.
Whether you’re presenting an idea to a client or creating a mood board in-house, an online digital whiteboard will make it easy to share and collect feedback on your ideas.
To use Conceptboard’s purpose-built mood board template, simply drag and drop imagery into the relevant section on the board.
Mind Maps
Brainstorming is a great way to generate ideas, but sometimes without structure, they can to go off-track. Try a Mind Map to organize information, connect related ideas, and help capture the flow of ideas during a brainstorming session. By linking ideas, you can replicate the way the mind works in an organic way.
Visual frameworks as a visual thinking strategy
Visual frameworks are simply any analytical tool that organizes ideas into concepts. Think of Venn diagrams, graphs, flow charts and tables. They are used to simplify and separate ideas to better understand any patterns or trends.
Try one of Conceptboard’s most popular visual frameworks to help you clarify questions and solve seemingly complex problems:
Discover visual collaboration
Sketches
Adults are often reluctant to draw, thinking they’re either no good at it, or it’s too childish for the business world. But the fact is, sketching is a great way to pull the ideas out of your mind and into the real world. In fact, it was inventor Thomas Edison who said, “I have numerous machines in my mind now which I continue to illustrate day by day.”
Whether it’s a quick mock up from a brainstorming session or a logo design, visual representations of strategy and ideas are essential tools in today’s workplace. Conceptboard’s scribble pen tool lets you create your sketches directly onto the digital board. The best part: producing effective sketches to illustrate your ideas is independent of your artistic abilities!
We hope you can take some of these visual thinking strategies into your business. Let us know which ones have worked for your team in the comments below.
Conceptboard is the perfect tool to help you adapt to working remotely in distributed teams. Conduct online brainstorming sessions, transition your agile team to remote, or embrace design thinking with Conceptboard.
