Visual dialogue is a hybrid between visual thinking, scribing, and dialogic action. Concepts unknown to a conversation partner are expressed through simultaneous verbal and visual sketches. In design projects, these concepts are often formed throughout the conversation, as they represent new things in the world. Concepts are often built on existing or provisional pattern languages. They emerge from concrete experience but are often lost to abstractions.
I use visual dialogue in my supervisory practice, change laboratories, and design studios to return to concrete experience. Further down the conversation, they work as anchors to new arguments and memory cues. Visual dialogue works better with thick pens and plenty of whiteboards or glass surfaces. Visual dialogue must be spontaneous to the point of not breaking the conversation flow, yet must be encouraged through collaborative policies and team coaching. Visual dialogues produce intersubjective spaces that may stay in place for assynchronous collaboration.
