Communication

We designers need to communicate effectively with lots of groups of people in the process of delivering our work.

• stakeholders
• customers
• colleagues

But what is communication and what is meant by a good communicator?

Communication can be visual, physical or verbal ie written or spoken language and usually requires 2 or more beings

all with various needs and there are some good frameworks for thinking about how we communicate with different groups.

in communicating there are various types of transactions that occur such as

• learning
• making decisions
• listening
• teaching
• storytelling

Communication has multiple parts and stages to it depicted by this simplified diagram. Words by themselves, do not have any inherent meaning. Humans give meaning to them, and their meanings change across time, how we are feeling and context. Each word stands for concepts in our individual experience. We have to negotiate the meaning of the word “home,” and define it, through visual images or dialogue, in order to communicate with our audience.