Visual Designs as a Technical & Intercultural Communication Tool Abstract Since before the 14th century, visual design has had a long relationship with technical and intercultural communication for the benefit of humanity (O'Hara 2001). The interconnectedness shared by text and images serves as a conduit through which we can all come together to communicate on a common ground. The visual design creates a global opportunity to serve cultures by allowing people of various languages to comprehend and communicate effectively. When people have access to and the opportunity to communicate, our world benefits because lives can improve, inventions can be realized, and families can be formed. My literary review will discuss and critique various works by scholars who are dedicated to researching the relationship between visual design, technical, and intercultural communication and its significance for students, pedagogy, and diverse communities around the world. Keywords: Intercultural communication, visual design, diversity, globalization, technical communication, students,One Author writing, rhetoric, language, and pedagogy. Introduction The desire of humanity to come together and share information fueled the growth of technical communication. As people evolved and moved away from their respective areas, it became necessary to be able to converse with people from different cultures for a variety of reasons, including provision, commerce, religion, politics, and establishing personal relationships. People of various ethnicities, languages, and cultures needed to be able to communicate effectively during the developmental stages of technical communication. Diverse languages, dialects, and pidgins are critical because they are the primary means of communication between different peoples. A miscommunication may cause a person to be offended, resulting in negative reactions. Intercultural technical communication and visual design are intertwined and as relevant today as they were when Aristotle lived. In my paper, I will discuss the work of several scholars who demonstrate a link between visual design and intercultural communication. Also, why do these authors believe that, from a global standpoint, this association is critical to the continued success of the technical communication discipline? In addition, I will provide my critique by comparing the writers' perspectives, as well as my opinion and questions for further research. Each review will start with a suitable visual design element. Visual Design, a Communication Tool Visual design, intercultural communication, and technical communication are all related in that their early stages were created around the same time. (O'Hara and Williams 2001) informs his readers that the first Two software documentation writer, Muhammad ibn Musa Al' Khowarizimi, a Tashkent cleric, created the first detailed Authors writing process to be followed so the reader could achieve a goal during the twelfth century; this same technique is used in nearly all computer programming languages today. He cleric wrote a book and referred to the process as a "algorithm." Early writing artifacts from the Aztecs, Chinese, Egyptians, and Babylonians were discovered as a result of O'Hara's research. These writings demonstrated the use of images as a form of written communication. From the 14th to the 17th centuries, these writings spawned numerous disciplines such as science, religion, medicine, mechanical and graphic arts, and literature. More advancements resulted in the social infrastructure we have today, such as language, travel, trade, and public buildings, roads, and water systems (O'Hara, Williams, and Hill 2001). Figures 1 and 2 show examples of the Three Authors' early writings, which evolved into visual/graphic design and intercultural and technical communication. Fig. 1, Dezalb “Egypt Tomb Deir-el-medina” Digital Image. Pixabay. April 16, 2018. https://pixabay.com/en/egypt-tomb-deir-el-medina-3323819/ Fig. 2, Vogue Montage “Sculpture Pharaoh Hieroglyph” Digital Image. Pixabay. April 17, 2018. https://pixabay.com/en/sculpture-pharaoh-hieroglyph-3326208/ O'Hara's piece differs from the others in my review in that it is out of date. However, it compares in that the information contained therein is timeless due to its historical nature. In addition, he provides a breakdown of the types of jobs that declined between 1994 and 2005 as a result of the software that is now available for non-technical communication and visual artist paraprofessionals in his research. The sobering part is that jobs that were once highly specialized are now all but gone, such as typesetting and composing machine operators, who fell by -70.2 percent, and letterpress operators, who fell by 70.5 percent, large-computer operators, who fell by -35.3 percent, and many others, such as paste-up workers. Typists and word processors who lost more than -30% of their jobs are almost unheard of in today's job markets. The visual design and technical communication disciplines gave birth to invention, which simplified jobs and allowed intercultural communication to join the family. Allowing this enhancement to connect is an opportunity to broaden research, devise inquiries, create a concise definition, and foster global inclusiveness. Everything has a beginning, which marks the start of its historical record. Although brief, O'Hara's opus explains to his readers how visual design, intercultural communication, and technical communication all emerged around the same time. The early and current research methods he outlined for his readers, which were “standardized and adopted by science” (O'Hara et al. 2001, 500), are a key component in his work. The traditional examination paradigm has five steps; Authors' revised version has four. 1. State the problem 2. Form a possible explanation or hypothesis 3. Observe, experiment, and record data 4. Interpret the data 5. Draw conclusions Updated formula: 1. State the problem 2. Describe the method 3. Display the results 4. Draw the conclusions As I pored over these scholars’ texts, I am reminded of two quotes from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “The function of education is to teach one to think critically. Intelligence plus character—that is the goal of true education.” And, “Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” Fig. 3, Hain John “Non-Violence, Peace, Transformation” Digital Image. Pixabay. January 25, 2016. https://pixabay.com/illustrations/non-violence-peace-transformation-1158317/ This is the story of my life up to this point. When I first read this quote, all I could do was fight back tears. Because it was a collaboration between America graduate and high school students and members of a small weaving Mexican community to design and paint a mural in the pueblo's central market that fostered inclusion through visual design and intercultural communication, the work required faith, courage, and creativity. The students were initially separated by time, space, culture, and language. Hubbard (2010b) and several of her students visited Oaxaca, Mexico, one of the poorest Mexican states with the highest indigenous population. Both sides had to commit to compromising their ideas based on feedback from the other group for this effort to take shape and be considered successful. This study differs from the others in my review in that people, in this case, Americans, left their comfort zone to venture into someone else's territory. Furthermore, they were armed only with faith, hope, design skills, ideas, and formal education. Hubbard (2010) uses visual design as a communication vehicle to close cultural gaps and to build lasting bonds. The author believes that a visual arts curriculum is germane, and a necessary component to moving students toward competent and confident intercultural collaboratives. This effort is the most striking because the Amer students not only learned about the egregious social problems facing Oaxaca, Mexico but saw the harsh realities themselves. And, they had an opportunity to work closely with non-English speaking designers, artists, and paint was as if Hubbard (2010) took King’s inclusion message to heart and acted upon it in a way that King himself have respected and honored. N. Jones (2016) shares Hubbard's (2010) passion for diversity in that she challenges technical communicators to take a social justice approach to research and pedagogy with the same zeal that they did during the Civil Rights Movement. N. Jones' (2016) opus blames technical communication scholars for issues of diversity, inclusion, and social justice. She believes that intercultural communication should be the norm rather than the exception in our field. She poses pertinent questions that cause scholars to pause and reflect on what we study and our position on the lack of diversity in our field.. “What must be done on a practical level? How do we move forward to legitimize our field further and empower our scholars but also value and legitimize other perspectives and experiences?” (J. Jones 2011, 345). N. Jones (2016) explains that in order for scholars to answer these questions, “our scholars must emphasize the humanistic perspective because it is directly related to the human experience...how individuals experience the world in which they live.” Human understanding is a "core concern" for diversity, inclusion, and intercultural communication, according to N. Jones (2016) and the other scholars in my review. Visual design is a component that contributes to the meaning and comprehension of messages. Hubbard (2010) used images to communicate a message of peace and hope to a poor Mexican community. Coleman and McTigue (2013, 19-21) discussed the use of graphics as teaching aids for children. O'Hara's (2001, 2023) enlightened his readers on visual design’s rich history, and how this communication form enhances economies worldwide. References Brady, L. C., & Ratinoff, E. 2015. “Recognizing and fostering inclusiveness.” New Hampshire Busi Buck-Coleman, A. 2010. “Navigating cross-cultures, curriculum, and confrontation: Addressing et in design education”. Visible Language 44(2):187-206. Coleman, J. and McTigue, E. 2013. “Unlocking the Power of Visual Communication Interactive readdecode science diagrams and other visual information”. Science and Children. DeSilver, Drew. 2018. "The Real Value of a $15 Minimum Wage Depends on Where You Live." Pew Research Center. Evans, P., and Thomas, M.A. 2013. “Color and Design. Exploring the elements of design.“ New York, NY: Cengage Learning 122-171. Hasler, B., Salomon, O., Tuchman, P., Lev-Tov, A., & Friedman, D. 2017. “Real-time gesture translation in intercultural communication.” AI & Society 32(1): 25. doi:10.1007/s00146-014-0573-4. Hubbard, K. 2010. ”A Cross-Cultural Collaboration: Using Visual Culture for the Creation of a Socially Relevant Mural in Mexico.” Art Education 5:68.