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
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Hubbard, K. 2010. ”A Cross-Cultural Collaboration: Using Visual Culture for the Creation of a Socially Relevant Mural
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