1. Question 1 Visuals are not decoration. They are communication tools. Provide three strategic reasons why visuals are essential to effective web content. For each reason: 

Clearly explain the concept 

Provide a real-world example (not generic statements) Marks are awarded for depth, not surface-level answers. (6 Marks)

Images attract more attention to your content. As in the class powerpoints, 90% of the information your brain registers is through imagery and visuals. A real-world example of this is something that we talked about in an email. In email, when you just have a block of words, it isn’t visually appealing, and it’s overwhelming for the reader. The rule of ” don’t make me think,” which we discussed in class. This is a mental turn-off for the reader because they don’t want to put effort into understanding. When you add visuals to complement your images, it makes it easier for a reader to understand because images trigger a different part of the brain than words do. Here is an example of what I am talking about.

Email with Only Text

Email with Images and Text

Images help with memory recall. We also discussed this in class, how people only remember about 10% of text-based information 3 days later. When you pair it with a strong, relevant visual, that number jumps to 65%. This is because images trigger a different part of the brain, as I said above. Images can trigger emotions and subliminal messaging, which sticks with you much longer than text-based information. An example of this is the Nike ” Find Your Greatness ” campaign. The one that I think is the best example of this is an overweight child jogging down an empty road. This image resonates with a lot of people because a lot of people can identify with struggling with body image. This emotional trigger sticks with people a lot longer than simply displaying text that says ” find your greatness and a bunch of text. This sticks with me particularly; we talked about this ad in a class with Anita in the first year, and I still remember it a year later, which speaks to the amount of recall that that post carried.

Visuals increase engagement. Per one of the class powerpoints, roughly two-thirds of consumers say that visuals are extremely important when it comes to a purchase decision. We can infer from this that having strong visuals impacts two-thirds of consumers’ conversions. One of the best platforms for engaging and communicating with your audience is social media platforms, and one of the biggest metrics on social media is engagement. This is largely because social media is a highly visual platform based on imagery and video. An example of increased engagement due to visuals is a project I worked on designing for social media. I don’t have access to the account anymore, but I do have the designs. The design with more imagery did better by a significant margin on both Instagram and Facebook.

Post with Strong Visuals (performed well. More likes, shares, and comments)

Post with Weaker Visuals (almost no engagement, just views)