Revising and Enhancing Visual Media for Impact

During the development of a visual aid, the author will review, change, or amend it as a part of the revision process. The end product can benefit from the author’s taking the time to pause to analyze whether the visual aid is aligned with the purpose of the message she is trying to convey. This includes the visual aid accommodating the audience’s needs and characteristics and providing a persuasive conclusion. The revision process allows for fine-tuning that will enhance your visual media and ensure the message reaches the intended audience.

When revisiting a visual aid, remember the four visual media standards we have explored in this module:

1. Is it clear and simple?
2. Is it consistent and uniform?
3. Is it relevant and on brand?
4. Is it persuasive?

The revision stage is a prime time to receive feedback from someone less familiar with what you have been working on to receive an outside viewpoint. Feedback is an important and inevitable part of work, and it comes from the people around you like supervisors, peers, and customers. Hearing negative feedback can be frustrating, and feel dismissive after spending time and effort on creating a visual aid.

If a colleague doesn’t like your choice of image or graph, this doesn’t mean your choice was wrong. Asking questions to clarify what is missing from your visual aid allows you to use this feedback to revise your visual and potentially communicate your message more successfully to your audience.

When feedback points to how a visual aid isn’t working with the text, be curious, not defensive. It is tempting to become defensive or to explain away the criticism, but resist this natural reflex. Do not debate or try to explain your behavior. Instead, let the other person finish completely and try to listen deeply. Then ask questions with the intent of inquiry:

• If you had to make two suggestions for improving my work, what would they be?
• Do the colors, alignment, or content of the image add or distract from the message or text?
• Is there something confusing or that could be done differently in this visual aid?
• How eye-catching or engaging is the visual aid?
• Is it interactive, original, funny, or interesting?
• What is something that works well in this visual aid?
• Which parts of the visual aid are successful and unsuccessful and why?

Request examples of what they think a good visual is. Stay curious until you can see how they reached their opinions—even if you don’t completely agree. Later, you can decide what you agree or disagree with, but for now, your goal is simply to learn. Reflect thoughtfully on what you’ve heard.

Just as getting someone to read your writing can make your writing better, getting someone to look at your visual aids will help you create a better product. Asking someone to look over your slides, listen to your presentation, or watch a video you created can seem scary, but mistakes and feedback are opportunities to grow, rather than personal failures. Seeing feedback as an opportunity is referred to as a growth mindset. Criticism is about the work, not the person who created the work.

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Your Message

A communicator can produce messages all day long, but they are not effective unless the audience receives them, consumes them, understands them, and (if applicable) provides the requested response. You can actually gain some understanding through data collection with the right tools.

• Did the audience receive the message sent? Companies like ContactMonkey or Politemail provide email tracking services to help a communicator determine how many of your readers opened your message. If you use a collaborative platform to share your messages, a web tracking program like Google Analytics can give you insights as to who is finding your message.
• Did the audience consume any of the message? If your message is encouraging a reader to click through to a video or webpage, this can help you understand better if the reader engaged with the content. How many readers clicked through to watch the video?
• Did the audience understand the message? This is where it gets tricky. Certainly, if you’ve requested a behavior of your audience and they’ve responded accordingly, then you know your message was understood. For instance, if you requested that customers update their passwords, you can tell how many audience members understood the message by measuring how many customers changed their passwords. However, if your message was about company strategy, strengthening employee engagement, or increasing customer confidence in the company, it’s not as easy to gauge the effectiveness of these more nebulous messages. Long-term, you’re likely to see the results of these messages (whether positive or negative), but you likely want to know relatively quickly if your message was successful. You can use tools like surveys to determine if you’re on the right track.