The power of visuals: Make your informative articles more vivid and interesting

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In today’s era of information explosion, knowledge articles (opens in a new tab) have become an important way for us to acquire new knowledge and learn new skills. As a writer and a doctoral student in communication who specializes in the field of communication, I have a deep understanding: Compared with pure text, if you can add diagrams and illustrations when producing content, it will not only make the information transmission of the article more efficient and clear, but also often enrich the reading experience of readers.

Below, I’ll share some of the benefits illustrated with diagrams. If you think you’re not good at drawing, don’t worry! I’ll give you some advice on how to get started learning to make diagrams.

Benefits of chart illustrations

1. Improve information absorption efficiency: The human brain’s ability to process images far exceeds text. Charts can quickly convey complex information, allowing readers to absorb and understand the key points in the article more efficiently.
2. Strengthen memory impressions: Elements such as color, shape, and visual layout can deepen readers’ memory impressions. The data and relationships in the chart are displayed through visual elements, which are easier to remember than pure text descriptions.
3. Promote data analysis and comparison: It is especially important for informative articles such as displaying research results, statistical data, etc. Charts can clearly show comparisons and trends between data, helping readers quickly understand key points.
4. Improve the attractiveness of the article: Visual elements can enhance the attractiveness of the article (opens in a new tab), make the article stand out among the numerous text information, and increase the click-through rate and reading rate.
5. Strengthen persuasiveness: Clear diagrams can effectively support your viewpoint, making your argument more powerful and improving the persuasiveness of informative articles.

How to start learning to make charts

For people who are not good at drawing, starting to learn to make diagrams can feel a bit challenging, but there are many resources and tools to help you.

1. Learn basic design principles: Self-study includes color theory (opens in a new tab), layout design and other knowledge. These basic knowledge will help you understand how to effectively use visual elements to convey information.
2. Ask for help from experts and scholars: Of course, you can also ask for help from experts and scholars, such as my two friends, illustration and brand IP master Chen Peiru (opens in a new tab), and illustration coach Qiu Yilin (opens in a new tab). In addition to sharing various good books with comics (opens in a new tab), the former also often helps companies or professionals design LINE stickers; while the latter, in addition to setting up a series of online courses (opens in a new tab), is also the author of “[Teaching Illustrations]” (h ttps://www.books.com.tw/exep/assp.php/vista/products/0010968625?utm_source=vista&utm_medium=ap-books&utm_content=recommend&utm_campaign=ap-202404 (opens in a new tab))” and other special books. Both of them have their own ingenuity in graphic and text design, and both are worthy of reference and learning.
3. Use chart making tools: such as Canva (opens in a new tab), Piktochart (opens in a new tab), Infogram (opens in a new tab), etc. These tools provide an easy-to-use drag-and-drop interface and rich templates, allowing even beginners to easily create professional-level charts.
4. Reference and analyze excellent chart cases: Study and analyze excellent chart designs, understand how they effectively convey information, and try to imitate and apply them to your own works.
5. Learn to use data visualization software: For people who need to process large amounts of data and conduct complex analysis, learning data visualization tools such as Excel, Tableau (opens in a new tab) or Power BI is also essential homework.
6. Practice, Improve and Optimize: Finally, practice is the key to learning any new skill. Please boldly create and share your graphic works, then learn and improve from everyone’s feedback, and optimize your graphic works.

Many people mistakenly believe that charts are only used for decoration. In fact, they are a powerful tool for conveying information. Through study and practice, even people who are not good at drawing can master the skills of making attractive diagrams, thereby making their informative articles more vivid, powerful and attractive.

To give an actual case, the students of our first “Monetization (opens in a new tab)” online course Writing Text (opens in a new tab) had previously been on Facebook K wrote an article to share his own How to complete a reading experience (opens in a new tab)? This content of the post (opens in a new tab) is very good, I recommend everyone to read it. But if you look carefully, you will find that there is only a text description in this post, which is actually difficult to understand, so I helped him convert it into a diagram.

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Look, after I helped him add the diagram, is it now easier to understand what he wants to convey by writing the text? If you are interested in graphic design (opens in a new tab), or want to learn how to use AI tools to draw charts, please leave a message or write to me! After that, I will consider setting up relevant online courses or workshops! (opens in a new tab)