Best Ways to Visually Communicate Online

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Communicating visually online is best achieved using a video, whiteboard animations, and other approaches. Often these include both the spoken word within a moving image and are accompanied by written copy to provide additional details or greater depth. After all, not everything is best created in a visual manner – it depends on what’s being communicated and the most appropriate (or effective) medium to do so.

Here are the best ways to visually communicate online.

Streaming Video as a Broadcaster or Part of the Audience

Whether you’re the creator of a live stream or just learning from others, video is one of the best mediums to use. Accessing live streamed video content can usually only be viewed at the time and sometimes for a short duration later before it goes offline.

Depending on your internet connection, a live stream may take up too much bandwidth and not be watchable, so choose your internet providers wisely. Alternatively, it might not be the right time to focus intently on the content because you’re busy with other things and don’t wish to break off. You want the ability to save the video to learn from it later.

Unfortunately, it’s not usually possible to save a copy of the streamed video. With YouTube, Vimeo and others, the content is often locked. This doesn’t help later study. Therefore, you will need a software package that runs on your home PC to capture streaming video as it happens and save a video recording of it. The Movavi Screen Recorder can save in several formats including those that are easily viewable on a smartphone or tablet.

Whiteboard Animations

Conveying complex subject matter in a step-by-step manner is perhaps best-done using whiteboard animations. These often use a funky character to personalise the experience. Usually, a commentary track alongside the animation helps to further explain what is happening visually to complete the picture. 

The advantage of this type of animated sequence is that it’s still visual enough to grasp the elements and points being conveyed while not dragging them out.

Slideshows

A slideshow is an older form of visual communication that can include images but mostly focuses around covering facts through a series of points presented a single slide at a time. When you want to make points progressively with some active separation between each one, then a slideshow is effective at doing this.

It’s also creatively far less intensive to put together something usable in PowerPoint or an online site like SlideShare. The latter is owned by LinkedIn and is compatible with a wide array of document types including OpenDocument, Word, PDF and PowerPoint file formats.

It makes sense to use a variety of visual communication formats depending on the material being conveyed. Whiteboard animations, for instance, are popular when used in YouTube videos because it gets away from the typical talking head format. Even using live spreadsheets shared with other people can better explain complex financial details better than other visual mediums. Choose your format wisely to get your point across visually in most impactful way possible.