The next completed book on the subject of visual presentations on my to-read list was The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures by Dan Roam. The subject is quite accurate; this is a book that tells you how to use visual aids to solve problems and does a pretty good job at it, too.
The book starts by quite appropriately debunking some of the myths that keep people from drawing; i.e. the familiar “But I can’t draw” and “I’m not a visual person” excuses. After those possible initial in-your-head restrictions, it’s off to work creating pictures. The book, as far as books come, is a very hands-on book, encouraging you to draw (by hand! not with a computer) the numerous examples.
Beyond the introductory chapter, the book is divided into three parts; Discovering Ideas, Developing Ideas and Selling Ideas. Along the way, several frameworks are developed to help categorize and remember what kind of visualizations are out there, what are the questions they need to answer and so forth. One of the most useful ones is the SQVID which helps decide whether a picture should be simple or elaborate (S), qualitative or quantitative (Q), explaining vision or execution (V), focus on individuals or comparisons (I) and whether it depicts change (D for delta) or as-is/status quo. SQVID combined with a list of different kind of visualizations provided, one can easily choose the most appropriate type of picture for most situations.
I found the Back of the Napkin to be a highly interesting and useful read. The frameworks it offered will most certainly come in handy in the future. One of the most interesting insights was at the end of the book; it is often forgotten was that a picture does not need to be so simple as to not require any explanation:
This brings us to the last problem in this book, namely, Is a problem-solving picture “bad” if it requires an explanation? After all, doesn’t the old adage “a picture is worth a thousand words” tell us that good pictures always stand on their own?
The answer is no. All good pictures do not need to be self-explanatory, but they do need to be explainable. It’s a rare problem-solving picture of any sort that can carry a clear message, convey powerful meaning, and inspire deep thoughts without at least a caption. [..] the point isn’t to replace all the words; the point is to use a picture to replace those words that are more effectively conveyed, understood, and remembered visually.
All in all, highly recommended for most problem solvers. Btw, the book also has a website at http://www.thebackofthenapkin.com/ along with some convenient downloadable “cheat sheets” for the presented frameworks.
