Killer Visual Strategies

CHAPTER 2VISUAL CONTENT AND HUMAN NATURE

“The broader one's understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have."

—Steve Jobs

While advancements in technology helped fuel the rising demand for visual content, our universal embrace of that content must be considered an equally valid indicator of its power and effectiveness. When organizations were competing for their corner of the internet, the ones that led with visual content saw far more success than those that relied on text-heavy alternatives. In fact, the most successful innovations that followed were often founded on a visual-first mentality.

So what has driven audiences to crave visual content above all else? To answer this question, we have to understand human psychology and our innate predilection toward visual communication.

Scientists, philosophers, and linguists have debated the origin of both verbal and written language for centuries. Did the ability to communicate through a common language occur as a learned social construct, or was it a sudden evolutionary shift wherein our species developed a natural inclination to formulate words from thoughts? This particular debate may never find a true answer, but there is no debate that verbal and especially written language developed long after the earliest humans appeared.

When challenged with the need to communicate, early hunter-gatherers expressed themselves with visual depictions of their message long before the tools for written language became ...