What is Visaul Thinking/Graphic Facilitation?

Visual Thinkers in group sessions can distinguish from people's complex thoughts to a clear and still meaningful graphics instantly. They are just like a prism that divide the white light into several colors.

In terms of an individual, Roam D. (2008) defined visual thinking as taking advantage of our innate ability to see—both with our eyes and with our mind’s eye—in order to discover ideas that are otherwise invisible, develop those ideas quickly and intuitively, and then share those ideas with other people in a way that they simply “get”.

In the practice, there are many definitions of VT/GF published online. Here I summarized the quotes of some opinion leaders in the field: XPLANE, founded in 1993, is the most well-known and pioneering visual thinking consultancy companies in the America. Chris Pearse, co-founder of the Clarity Partnership, wrote a paper, “Putting People in Your Picture”, with profound knowledge about VT/GF in practice. Brandy Agerbeck, an experienced graphic facilitator in the America, provided valuable insights as an active visual practitioner in her career. JAM visual thinking had actively involved with the ideas to inspire people what VT/GF is and how to use it for years in the Netherlands.

To sum up their interpretations of VT/GF, Visual Thinkers/Graphic Facilitators are the visual and usually silent partners, compared to the traditional verbal facilitators (Agerbeck B., 2004). They take part in sessions and together translate people’s project into a clear and large scale image in real-time (JAM visual thinking, 2008). Visual Thinkers/Graphic Facilitators provide people an efficient means to make sense of complex issues (Pearse, C., 2007) by taking advantage of our innate abilities. People can simply get information by receiving it visually. And VT/GF in this sense is not a solution for these issues but rather a catalyst (Pearse, C., 2007) to accelerate understandings (XPLANE, 2009) in front of a large group.

Drawings reflect on Visual Thinkers’/Graphic Facilitators’ minds when they collect the general and specific senses of everyone in a given session. VT/GF is a powerful tool of recognition for everyone (Agerbeck B., 2004). These drawings can pave the way to understand each other in a complex reality and lead people to a right decision and taking actions (XPLANE, 2009).