Make an abstract idea spatial
@designedbystellar, credits @neuronvisuals on Instagram
An abstract line is easier to keep when the card draws it as one familiar shape and puts the words on that shape.
What to look at
The cover is black, with the line "10 visuals that will flip a switch in your brain" and a small figure standing on a disc over clouds. A star-ringed figure sits at the foot of every card. Ten drawings follow, cream then black, one idea each. A year bar is filled through June, a tick marks July as today, a solid bracket under the past says lessons, and a dotted bracket under the rest says opportunities. Later cards set two pictures side by side: a clock against a target, a blank circle against a fingerprint, and a straight line from "set a goal" to "achieve it" against a path that loops through doubting, failing, and feeling lost. One card is an eye chart whose lines shrink from YOU CAN ONLY toward THINK. The last card drops the drawing and only asks people to follow @designedbystellar and comment BRAND.
Why it works
This is the picture-superiority effect: people tend to remember a picture better than words alone, because a picture is stored as the image and as the word for it. Nielsen Norman Group also says that advantage shrinks when the picture is abstract, and that the words still have to be there. These cards keep the words on the shape. A clock labeled "you don't need more time" is a picture of a clock, so the object is easy to name. A fingerprint labeled "be authentic" is an analogy, and the same group warns that an analogy fails when the two ideas are not close, and that a visual pun is risky. Placing the words on the drawing matters for another reason: people use the nearby text to decide what a picture means, and a pile of similar pictures makes each one easier to skip. The findings are about memory and about pages, not a study of this Instagram post.
Try it
- Pick one claim a client must remember, and draw it as one familiar shape: a year, a path, or two objects side by side.
- Print the words on the shape. Do not leave them in a caption under a picture that could mean something else.
- Prefer a thing people can name, such as a calendar or a clock, and ask someone outside the studio what the card says before you post it.
- Keep one drawing on a screen. Do not stack the ten metaphors on the homepage.
- Put the next step on the first card as well as the last. This post asks for the comment only after the drawings.
What it costs
A vague drawing is harder to remember than a literal one, and ten thin line drawings in the same cream and black start to look like one style rather than ten ideas. An analogy that stretches, the way a clock failed in testing when it was meant to mean history rather than time, sends people to the wrong idea. The eye chart's lower lines get small. The ask to comment BRAND sits only on the twelfth card. These notes come from memory research and from interface studies, not from a count of who swipes an Instagram carousel.
Words worth knowing
- Picture superiority: People tend to remember a picture better than the same idea written in words alone.
- Reference icon: A picture that stands for an idea by analogy, not because it is a picture of that idea.
- Natural mapping: A drawing whose direction matches the meaning, such as later to the right or more toward the top.
Sources
- The Picture-Superiority Effect Nielsen Norman Group
- 7 Tips for Memorable and Easy-to-Understand Imagery Nielsen Norman Group
- Icon Classification: Resemblance, Reference, and Arbitrary Icons Nielsen Norman Group
- Match Between the System and the Real World Nielsen Norman Group