Dan Roam’s Six Ways of Seeing

Dan Roam presented the fundamentals of his book “The Back of the Napkin, Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures,” to a crowd of over 200 Silicon Valley product managers. His passion is clear… he is here to ensure that we all understand how to leverage “visual thinking” in both the discovery and the selling of ideas.

Mr. Roam’s visual thinking framework includes a 4 step process, a 3 Parts understanding based on the biology of seeing and and insights into how to best leverage the 6 ways of seeing. Most importantly, this approach to understanding “visual thinking” becomes a important tool for product managers in conveying product design objectives and customer needs.

The focus of the presentation provided us with experiential learning of the “Six Ways of Seeing”.  Understanding these six ways provides a very concise summary of human visual cognition channels. Of course, he achieved this by using simple pictures to take us through each of the six different channels that humans use to interpret visual information.  Insight into each of these six channels allows us the insight into how best to communicate, with simple pictures that allow teams to discover, articulate, and sell any idea.

The Six Ways We See: “Seeing is about selecting what’s important.”

1. We See Objects – The Who and the What
2. We See Quantities – The How Many and the How Much
3. We See Position in Space – The Where
4. We See Position in Time – The When
5. We See Influence and Cause and Effect – The How
6. We See All of This Come Together and “Knew” Something – The 

Summary:

Mr. Roam reminds us that to a large extent the essential information available to humans is primarily visual information. His point…instead of the information language provides, which is important too, there is a vast amount of information that is relayed visually at a very core and instinctual level. By understanding these fundamentals, one can efficiently and effectively communicate ideas of all kinds from customers and teams.

Check out Dan’s new tools website at Dan Roam’s napkin academy:http://www.napkinacademy.com.

Also, Learn from Dan on YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/user/danroamclips

Reference:

“The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures,” Dan Roam, the Penguin Group, 2008.

 

Solving Complex Problems with Simple Pictures, Presentation by Dan Roam, Founder and President of Digital Roam Inc., Silicon Valley Product Management Association, February 2013.

Click to access Dan-Roam_6x6-Rule.pdf