Can Complex or Technical Information Really Be Explained Visually?

There’s an assumption I come across surprisingly often in my work:

“Our subject is probably too complicated to illustrate.”

Usually, this comes from people working with scientific research, policy, technical information, organisational strategy or some gloriously complicated combination of all four. And I understand the concern. If you’ve spent years researching something, or you’re communicating information where accuracy really matters, the last thing you want is for someone to turn it into three cheerful icons and a lightbulb. But complex information isn’t a reason not to use visual communication.

Quite often, it’s exactly the reason you should. The important distinction is this:

Simplifying communication does not mean dumbing down the subject.

Good information illustration isn't about removing all the complexity. It’s about helping your audience find their way through it.

What Does It Mean to Explain Complex Information Visually?

Visual communication takes information that might otherwise live in reports, presentations, research papers, conversations or technical documents and gives it structure. That might involve illustration, diagrams, visual metaphors, hierarchy, typography, arrows, timelines or other ways of showing how information relates. The aim isn't necessarily to make the subject simple. Some subjects simply aren't simple. The aim is to make the communication easier to follow. There’s a big difference. If I’m working with a complicated piece of information, I’m not thinking, “How can I remove all the difficult bits?”

I'm thinking: “What does somebody need to understand first for the rest of this to make sense?”

Then: “What connects to what? Where are the important relationships? What's essential context? What could be shown rather than explained in another 300 words?” That’s information illustration.

And a surprising amount of the work happens before I draw anything at all.

Scientific Research Is a Brilliant Candidate for Information Illustration

Academic and scientific research is often incredibly interesting. It's also often written for people who already understand the subject. That creates a problem when research needs to travel beyond academia - perhaps to policymakers, practitioners, funders, stakeholders or the general public.

A dense research paper might be completely appropriate for one audience and almost impenetrable for another. An illustrated research summary creates another way into the information. It can show the research question, key findings, relationships between ideas and important implications while still pointing people towards the full research when they need more detail.It doesn't replace the paper.

And it shouldn't pretend that years of research can magically be reduced to one doodle.

Instead, it gives people a useful entry point. I've worked on academic and scientific research projects where my job isn't to make the research less intelligent. It's to help more people access the intelligence that's already there. That distinction matters enormously.

Strategy Often Needs to Be Seen, Not Just Read

Organisational strategy has a different problem. The individual ideas may not be particularly difficult to understand, but there are often lots of them. Priorities connect to objectives. Objectives connect to people. People connect to systems. There are values, timelines, dependencies, outcomes and probably an arrow labelled “transformation” somewhere for good measure. Put all of that into a traditional strategy document and people have to mentally construct the bigger picture themselves. A strategy illustration or rich picture can make those relationships visible. Instead of reading about one priority on page seven and another on page 23 and trying to remember how they connect, people can see the organisation as a whole. That's particularly useful when a strategy needs to be understood by people who weren't involved in writing it. Because writing a strategy isn't really the end goal, is it?

People understanding what it means for them is.

Policy and Public Information Need More Than Accuracy

Policy is another area where visual communication can be incredibly useful. Of course, accuracy matters. But information can be technically accurate and still be very difficult for people to engage with. Long sentences, unfamiliar terminology and formal documents can create distance between an organisation and the people it's trying to reach. This becomes even more important when the subject itself is sensitive or likely to create uncertainty or resistance. I've worked with complex public information where the visual tone matters almost as much as the structure. Illustration can make information feel more approachable and human without making the subject frivolous. That's a balance I care about. You can make something accessible without making it simplistic. You can make something warm without making it unserious. And you can make something clear without removing nuance.

What About Really Technical Information?

This is often where people are most sceptical. “My work is really technical, though.” Great.

I actually really enjoy this kind of work. You don't need an information illustrator to arrive already knowing everything you know. If that were the requirement, I'd need several hundred degrees. Part of my job is approaching unfamiliar information, asking questions, identifying the hierarchy and working out how somebody else needs to encounter it.

In some ways, not being the subject expert can be useful. Experts naturally make connections and understand terminology that aren't obvious to everyone else. An outside perspective can expose the places where the communication is asking the audience to make a leap.

That doesn't mean I make technical decisions on behalf of the expert. Collaboration and review are important, particularly where precision matters.

But I can help turn expertise into communication other people can actually navigate.

Internal Organisational Information Can Be Complex Too

“Complex information” doesn't have to mean quantum physics. Sometimes it's your own organisation.

A leadership team might understand exactly how a programme, transformation project or five-year strategy fits together because they've been living and breathing it for months. Then it gets presented to everybody else in a 64-slide deck. Cue 200 people thinking: …right. Internal communication often suffers from the curse of knowledge. Once we understand something deeply, it becomes difficult to remember what it was like not to understand it. Illustrated summaries can bridge that gap. They can give teams a shared picture of what is changing, why it matters, where they fit and how different pieces of work connect. And that can reduce an awful lot of the “I thought you meant…” conversations that happen afterwards.

But Doesn't Simplifying Information Mean Losing Nuance?

This is the big one. And the answer is: it shouldn't. There is a difference between simplifying the information and simplifying the way the information is communicated. Good visual communication isn't about stripping away anything remotely complicated until you're left with a meaningless slogan. It's about hierarchy. Not every piece of information needs equal visual weight. Some things are foundational. Some are supporting detail. Some need to be understood before something else makes sense. Part of my work as an information illustrator is deciding how those layers fit together. Sometimes a visual summary is the finished communication. Other times, it sits alongside a detailed report, policy or research paper and helps people navigate towards deeper information. The goal isn't:

“How little can we tell people?” It's: “How can we help people understand this?”

Those are very different questions.

Why Visual Communication Helps With Complicated Subjects

When information exists only as a stream of words, the audience has to do quite a lot of work.

They need to remember what came earlier, identify the important points, work out how ideas connect and build a mental model of the whole thing. Visual communication can put some of that structure onto the page instead. A diagram can show a relationship immediately. A visual hierarchy can signal what's most important. A metaphor can give somebody a familiar way into an abstract concept. An illustrated summary can show how several themes fit together. That's why visual summaries, information illustration and graphic recording are particularly useful when there's a lot for people to process. The more complicated the information, the more useful good structure becomes.

Live Graphic Recording Can Make Complex Conversations Easier to Follow Too

Not all complex information arrives neatly inside a document. Sometimes it's being created live. At a conference, strategy day, technical workshop or leadership event, people might be hearing from several experts, discussing competing ideas and making connections across an entire day. That's where graphic recording and live illustration can help. My job is to listen to those fast-moving conversations, identify themes and patterns, and build an illustrated visual summary as the thinking unfolds.

Again, I'm not trying to capture every word. I'm trying to capture the meaning. At the end, the audience has something that helps them see the bigger picture rather than relying entirely on memory, scattered notes or slide 47.

Is Your Information Too Complicated to Illustrate?

Probably not. In fact, if you're currently thinking: “But Beth, you don't understand. Ours is REALLY complicated…” …there's a good chance you're exactly the sort of person I like working with.

Scientific research. Academic findings. Strategy. Policy. Technical subjects. Public information. Internal organisational thinking. I don't need your subject to be simple. I need to understand who needs to understand it, what they need to take from it, and why that matters. From there, we can work out what visual communication needs to do. Because information illustration isn't about making intelligent ideas less intelligent. It's about making sure all that brilliant thinking doesn't get trapped inside the heads of the people who already understand it.

Need Help Making Complex Information Easier to Understand?

I create information illustrations, illustrated visual summaries, strategy illustrations and live graphic recording for organisations across the UK that have important — and sometimes very complicated — things to communicate. If you've got a piece of research, a strategy, a policy, a technical subject or a gloriously messy pile of organisational thinking and you're wondering whether it could be communicated visually, get in touch.

Send me the complicated stuff.

That's the fun bit.