THE MISEDUCATION OF THE DOODLE

Published in A LIST APART / Jan. 11, 2010

By Sunni Brown

In the winter of 1969, Virginia Scofield was faced with a daunting challenge. It was a recurring
challenge⎯more like a nightmare⎯and she had already failed miserably at her first attempt.
This particular obstacle was one that most people consider themselves lucky to never face:
undergraduate organic chemistry.

At the time, Virginia was a student of biological sciences at the University of Texas. Her career
plan could have taken the form of a bumper sticker, “Ph.D. or Death!” But there was no
alternate route to pursuing her doctorate. She had to learn, integrate and retain the
masochistic detail of organic chemistry, and time was not on her side.

Having exhausted traditional learning methods such as highlighting, note-taking and rote
memorization, Virginia chose to unleash a powerful, primitive tool that ultimately turned out
to be her savior: the Doodle. Virginia decided that she was going to draw rudimentary visual
representations of every concept in her Morrison and Boyd textbook. She was going to deploy
a problem-solving technique that defied all the academic advice she was given as well as the
conventional wisdom of society. And the story has a happy ending. Not only did Virginia ace
her organic chemistry final and eventually become Dr. Scofield, but she also became a
celebrated immunologist, earning accolades for one of the biggest scientific breakthroughs
related to the transmission of HIV. She credits much of her success, then and now, to her
world-turning decision to doodle.

So what exactly does it mean “to doodle?” If you reference any standard dictionary, it will offer
up a variety of disreputable definitions: to dilly-dally, to fiddle around, to make meaningless
marks, or to do something of little value, substance or import. But considering what doodling
did for Dr. Scofield and what it does for hordes of humans around the world, these definitions
are nothing short of obnoxious. People have been solving problems and making sense of the
world using simple visual language for over 30,000 years. A more appropriate definition is long
overdue.

Doodling may be better described as ‘markings to help a person think.’ Most people believe
that doodling requires a shutdown of the intellectual mind, but this is one of the
misrepresentations that needs correcting. There is no such thing as a mindless doodle. The act
of doodling is the mind’s attempt to engage before succumbing to mindlessness. Doodling
serves a myriad of functions that end up being thinking, albeit in disguise. This universal act is
known to:

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 • Increase our ability to focus (especially when handling dull or complex subject matter)
• Increase information retention and recall
• Activate the “mind’s eye,” or the portions of the visual cortex that allow us to see
mental imagery and manipulate concepts
• Enhance access to the creative, problem-solving and subconscious parts of the brain,
while allowing the conscious mind to keep working
• Unify three major learning modalities: visual, auditory and kinesthetic

That last benefit of the Doodle is no slouch. Learning experts assert that, in order for
information to be truly integrated, it needs to incorporate at least two of the major modalities
or it needs to incorporate one modality coupled with a strong emotional experience. For the
Doodle to offer up the possibility of all three modalities and an emotional experience is an
impressive feat for such an outwardly simple behavior. Lo and behold, this “useless act” is
really a highly functional technique with broad applications for the way we work and the way
we think. It’s no happy accident that Thomas Edison was a prolific doodler and also one of our
most applauded inventors. Neither is it a coincidence that many of the most innovative
companies use doodling and visual language to stay ahead of the curve.

THE STRATEGIC DOODLE

Overturning decades of semantic disgrace won’t happen overnight, hence my term the
strategic doodle. To doodle strategically is to doodle with the intention of tracking auditory or
text-based information and displaying it back to an audience (it can be an audience of one).
Strategic doodling is where powerhouse learning and problem solving takes place, which is
why it’s beyond justifiable at school and at work.

PLEASE, DOODLE AT WORK

The Doodle is the perfect office device: it’s user-friendly, it costs next to nothing to adopt and
it’s accessible to all of us⎯not just the artistically inclined. What’s more, the Doodle is the
friendliest stepping-stone imaginable to mapping out serious challenges of process and
design. To leverage the power of the Doodle at work, we first need to give ourselves
permission to do the Doodle and we next need a 101 skill set with which to begin.

THE VISUAL ALPHABET

The use of hand-drawn visual language starts with an alphabet. Namely, a visual alphabet. As
complex as we perceive the world to be, when reverse-engineered, there are only 12 forms
that make up our visual landscape. You can doodle every one. The forms below are the
fundamental building blocks for drawing everything in the known universe. Get comfortable
with these forms individually and in recombination with each other to make shapes, and
you’ve already moved through the Doodle doorway. Every shape you need to draw a persona,
a wireframe or a logo is before your eyes.

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THE STRATEGIC DOODLING BASIX
Strategic doodling at its best involves the intentional construction of meaningful visual
displays. This means that the more we can make information contextual, the better our display
will be. When we doodle to show relationships between bits of information, to reveal a bigger
picture of a system, or to decipher the efficiency of a workflow, we are embedding layers of
meaning into what may otherwise be a more superficial use of the visual alphabet. Six basic
elements help you add information richness to your display.

1. LETTERING
Make no mistake; a strategic doodle includes the use of text. Our minds process letters
as discrete images, so text is right at home in a doodle. But the idea is to selectively
showcase the most relevant words and use them to complement the subject you’re
communicating, not to write a novel on your page. President Kennedy often engaged
in what could be called “word doodling,” in that that he repeatedly traced over the
same letters as he was mulling over a problem. This multi-modal process helped him
think and make decisions. So text emphasis and “word pictures” (below) are effective
ways to show others what you mean and to sear information into your brain while you
doodle.

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 2. BULLETS
Because the strategic doodle allows for text, bullets come in handy as markers to
distinguish one text-based concept from the next. Just like the pin drop on iPhone
maps, bullets serve as landmarks to tell us that something important is in a particular
space. Bullets are versatile, too. They can take almost any shape⎯circles, squares, stars,
check marks, and an endless range of icons. The shape and color of bullets can also be
used to elevate them in importance for the viewer. A red exclamation mark, for
example, will likely attract more attention than a yellow sun.

3. FRAMES
Just like what we see in flow charts, frames create small fields to separate content from
its neighbors, to indicate that there’s a discrete bit of information. And like connectors,
frames can be designed to indicate the nature of the content they’re related to. They
can look like standard boxes to suggest “normalcy”, or like a flowing line to suggest
fluidity, or like comic book-style explosions to indicate something thrilling.

4. CONNECTORS
Connectors show the relationships between bits of information. All knowledge is in
association with other knowledge, so connectors allow us to link up systems and the
components of those systems. Connectors can also indicate the level of
connectedness between two or more elements⎯hierarchical or parallel⎯and the
nature of that connectedness⎯whether it’s static or dynamic, weak or strong, uni- or
multi-dimensional, etc.

5. FACES AND FIGURES

People are integral to systems and processes so it’s worthwhile to know how to
doodle faces and stick figures. And don’t worry if you think they look ridiculous; our
perceptual system is very forgiving of imperfections in visual representations. (It’s our
judgment that’s not.) When gazing at something, we often want it to resemble a
person so we can relate to it. More importantly, because the goal of the strategic
doodle is to build a meaningful visual landscape, there’s no way to avoid the need to

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 incorporate simple faces and figures. (Besides, how else are you going to tease your
coworkers?)

6. SHADOWS AND SHADING

For beginner doodlers, shadows and shading aren’t essential, but one of the most
effective ways to make your images look more realistic and interesting to the viewer is
to use them. Merriam-Webster defines shading as “the use of marking made within
outlines to suggest three-dimensionality, shadow, or degrees of light and dark in a
picture or drawing.” Shadows differ from shading in that they are defined as “the dark
figure cast upon a surface by a body intercepting the rays from a source of light.” In
other words, shading is on the object and shadows are not. The images below offer a
small sample of the many ways you can use shadows and shading to create 3-
dimensionality and volume in your objects and people. It’s often all you need to make
your doodles pop.

Because strategic doodling is about comprehension and communication rather than “art,”
advancing beyond the Basix doesn’t need to be a goal. Being able to effectively use text,
bullets, frames, connectors and so forth can make you a solid problem solver. And this may
come as a surprise, but it’s important to note in today’s interconnected workplaces: one need
not doodle alone.

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APPLICATIONS FOR A GROUP-DOODLE
We usually think of doodling as a solitary activity, but group doodles exploit the power of
participatory design and co-creation, and there are a slew of ways you can doodle with your
co-workers to share insights and solve real problems. Below are just a few suggestions.

• Doodle your company’s bigger picture. Rarely do employees in large organizations know
what all of the moving parts of the company do. Use flip-chart paper to group-doodle
a system map of the company’s operations and get invaluable insights from the
process. Think of the first effort as version 1.0. Don’t be precious about the look or
even the accuracy of the information. Just make a messy first attempt and then re-
doodle after everyone has contributed his or her ideas. Hone the big picture; it will
gradually appear.
• Clean up a workflow. Despite the fact that employees generally tell you that they
“know” what a process involves, if you ask them to draw you a picture, you’ll likely get
wildly different takes. Together, strategically doodle the sequential steps of a process.
The ah-has will be unexpected, and having a visual display of a flow helps everyone
see what’s happening and allows them to streamline it.
• Get breakthrough thinking on an old problem. When we rely solely on text and/or
auditory conversations to solve a problem, we can fall into a linear solution loop. The
beauty of visual language is that it’s inherently spatial and creative, so it increases the
chance that a different solution will emerge. Instead of writing down a problem or
discussing it, draw a picture of it and ask other people to draw their solutions. Their
thinking about solutions is what changes when they move into a doodling space. A
literally different frame of mind inevitably opens up possibilities.
• Doodle your company’s future. As a group, make a large-scale visual display out of a few
flip-chart pages and intentionally doodle the future direction of the company. We
often charge ahead without intention, but ideally our future moves are strategic.
Holding a meeting designed to draw the future actually allows people to create it,
rather than reacting to it as it unfolds. And if you’re curious, you can find dozens of
other doodle-related meeting activities at gogamestorm.com.

Like infants and dynamite, the Doodle is deceptively simple. A staggering number of scientific,
mathematical, and business breakthroughs have come via the act of making inelegant marks
on paper. The beauty of the Doodle is that it requires no educational degrees, no financial
status, no training. It only asks that we unleash it and let it do what it does best: help us think.

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