‘The Back of the Napkin’ by Dan Roam

Finished reading Dan Roam’s visual thinking tome, “The Back of the Napkin”. I really enjoyed his description of the process by which he came to “discover” visual thinking for himself – that he possessed this ability to communicate with others via simple pictures and graphics.

It was a fun enough read and while I understand why the dimensions of the book are to illustrate a literal “back of the napkin”, the format was incredibly annoying for anyone who uses an LED reading light or if you need to stash it in a way that it doesn’t get damaged. The 1×1 dimensions made it an unwieldy book which was a one of its few drawbacks.

To get the book, click on the cover below to get to Roam’s booksite.

Some quick notes:

Step-by-Step: Very Helpful

Back of the Napkin by Dan Roam

Example case: Not so helpful, felt restricted after a while.

The Visual Thinking Codex chart on page 141 is awesome but doesn’t reproduce well.

The key is in the summary/conclusion, if there’s something to memorize or remember with this book, it’s the following bullet points:

The Visual Thinking Swiss Army Knife:

Our Three Visual Thinking Tools:

• Our Eyes
• Our Mind’s Eye
• Our Hand-Eye Coordination

The Four Steps of Visual Thinking Process:

• Look
• See
• Imagine
• Show

SQVID – The Five Questions that Open Our Mind’s Eye:

• Simple vs. Elaborate
• Qualitative vs. Quantitative
• Vision vs. Execution
• Individual vs. Comparison
• Change (Delta) vs. Status Quo

The Six Ways We See:

• Who/What
• How Much
• Where
• When
• How
• Why