Hello, Visual Communicators! 👋
Welcome to the monthly Learn Visual Communication micro-magazine.
If you’ve ever explained something and watched eyes glaze over instead of light up, this edition is for you.
In this issue:
🧘 Mindful Design: Why Smart People Struggle to be Understood
💡 Insight: What Experts Often Forget
📚 Resources: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die.
Let’s get started!
🧘 Mindful Design
Why Smart People Struggle to be Understood
Remember, your audience may not see what you see.
I was thinking the other day about how often I see brilliant people struggle to be understood.
It happens in every field where one person holds the map, and the other is still figuring out which way is north (education, medicine, finance, science, tech, psychology, and more).
You spend years building expertise: earning degrees, conducting research, gaining real-world experience, and taking countless courses. You know the information like the back of your hand. But your audience doesn’t.
In conversation, they appear to be listening… but they leave confused!
It’s not your fault.
The real issue is information asymmetry, the gap between what you know and what they don’t.
Why does it matter?
Because it slows decisions, erodes trust, and breaks communication. In high-stakes cases, like a patient misunderstanding a diagnosis, the consequences can be serious.
Information asymmetry is like an uneven scale, your expertise outweighs their understanding.
⚖️ 3 Ways to Even the Scales
1. Use Visual Comparisons
Visual comparisons (analogies, metaphors, and similes) wrap something complex in something familiar. They compress understanding into a shape your audience already knows how to hold.
The image above is an example. I drew a scale with a doctor on one side and a patient on the other to illustrate what information asymmetry can look like if it were compressed into a visual metaphor.
When a concept feels familiar, it automatically becomes easier to understand and remember. It’s not about art, it’s about clarifying information.
One of the best things about using visual comparisons to compress information is that the drawing doesn’t even have to be a good one! A quick and scrappy sketch can oftentimes be just as effective as a more polished one.
What’s one idea you explain often? How could it be turned into a visual comparison?
Visuals, either polished or scrappy, help balance information asymmetry.
2. Be a Guide, Not a Hero
People admire experts. It’s easy to go on and on sharing your expertise because you know the material well. You have the best intentions, but what good is that information in a conversation if they can’t follow you?
Next time you experience a lost audience, try focusing on their needs instead of your knowledge.
Your student needs to learn the material in a way that sticks.
Your patient needs to make a confident, informed decision.
Your client needs to explain your thinking to their family.
Your coaching participant needs to apply the insight when no one’s there.
Your team needs to act with clarity when you are not there.
It’s a mental shift where you begin to behave more like a guide than a hero.
You equip others for the journey, but you don’t carry them.
You won’t always be there to explain. So don’t just give more information.
Give them a way to navigate on their own.
Use visuals to highlight key milestones. Show the path. Reduce overwhelm. Build confidence.
You’re not simplifying your thinking, you’re simplifying their access to it.
What would help them feel confident when you are away from them?
3. Give them the Big Picture (and their Starting Point)
People need to see where they are and where they’re headed.
A visual overview helps them understand the full landscape, not just the step in front of them.
You might offer:
A bird’s-eye sketch of your process or journey
A “You Are Here” marker on a timeline or trail map
A zoomed-out model that shows how today’s topic fits into the bigger system
These visuals don’t just clarify, they reduce overwhelm and build confidence.
What visual could help your audience see the big picture? Where do they fit into it?
If you’re new here, I’m Eva.
I help professionals without design backgrounds develop visual fluency and build reusable systems so their expertise becomes clear, structured, and recognizable.
💡 Insight
The curse of knowledge is that once you understand something, you forget what it’s like not to.
📚 Resources
Weekend read: Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip & Dan Heath.
I’m revisiting Made to Stick this weekend to explore what makes ideas memorable. One idea that stands out: the Curse of Knowledge, once you understand something, it’s hard to remember what it was like not to. I’ll weave any insights into future issues if I think they’ll be helpful.
📗Any books sparking ideas for you lately? I’d love to hear what’s on your list!
🫶 Thank You
Grateful you’re here.
I have been developing a few ideas.
There is much more to come.
Until then, keep creating!
-Eva from 📚👁️💬
Editor & Illustrator, Learn Visual Communication
Founder, The Visual Voice
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