Kent Eisenhuth is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Kent has developed visual languages that improve collaboration, comprehension, and decision-making across a wide array of Google products including Fitbit, Google Cloud, and Alphabet's Loon. Kent leads Google's Data Accessibility program. He previously led Google Cloud's Data Visualization Program and coauthored the data visualization specs for Material Design. Kent's work and ideas have appeared in many publications, including The Guardian, UXmatters, ACM journals, and Smashing Magazine. Kent has presented talks and ideas at many conferences, such as IxDA's Interaction, SXSW, and the Israeli Visualization Conference, and he is a frequent guest lecturer at several universities in the United States.

Foreword ix

Preface xi

Introduction xv

Chapter 1 Why Draw? 1

Explore an Idea 2

Gain a Shared Understanding 5

Improve Collaboration 7

Anyone Can Draw 7

Right Time and Place 10

Chapter 2 Reframing Our Thinking 15

Breaking It Down 17

Introducing the System 19

Common Drawings 23

Chapter 3 Lines and Points 33

Telling Stories with Lines 34

Making Meaning with Points 42

Tools and Materials 45

Chapter 4 Building From Rectangles 47

Creating Diagrams 48

Content Elements 55

Navigation Elements 58

Forms 65

Chapter 5 Building From Circles, Triangles, and More 81

Circular Elements 81

Triangular Elements 89

Advanced Icons and Symbols 92

Representing Interactions 98

Chapter 6 Illustrating Light, Motion, and Other Concepts 103

Shading Techniques 103

Using Accent Marks 105

Looking at Lighting 105

Using Elevation 110

Using Texture 116

Capturing Motion 119

Conveying Luminance 120

Communicating Sound 121

Chapter 7 The System 127

Putting It Together 128

Creating Something New 134

Chapter 8 Using Flows To Tell Stories 139

Starting with the Syntax 139

Showing Interactions 142

Just Enough Information 144

Depicting Transitions 145

Labels and Annotations 147

Being Conscious of Composition 150

Chapter 9 Telling Engaging Stories 157

Real-World

Constraints 160

Invoking Emotion 166

Adapting the Visual Language 170

Wayfinding and Landmarks 174

Choreography and Timing 178

Packaging Your Drawings 180

Chapter 10 Moving Forward 183

Works Cited 185

Index 187