"Crappy V.S Beautiful -- Different Roles of Drawings" What makes Visual Thinking so special?(IV)

There are different levels of drawings used in VT/GF. A given drawing has the ability to represent something really simple and something really complex. Visual Thinkers/Graphic Facilitators take advantages of the flexibility of drawings. In the process, they draw images and texts with open interpretation for simulating creative thinking. For the result, they choose a metaphor which contents correct and rich information deriving from participants' shared understandings.

A rough drawing could be also very meaningful since it makes sense in the discussion. However, a beautiful drawing done after workshops could be meaningless if it loses the links to the context. It is important to differentiate the functions of the drawings in the process and after sessions.

On one hand, the drawings in the process do not have to be sophisticated compared to the final mutual result. They are more like a real-time reflection (Valenza, C. and Adkins, J., 2009) of the process of meeting, which is beneficial to build TMMs. On the other hand, the refined drawings after sessions need to be profound enough to breed post-meeting ideas instead of only a reflector. A proper transformation (Stapper P. et al., 2005) helps people contemplate thoroughly with a coherent picture. However, the refined work is time-consuming (Valenza, C. and Adkins, J., 2009) and risky to lose underlying association of the drawings crating in the process.