Assessment of visual artifacts in the information economy

Assessment of technical visual representations poses challenges for professionals in both academic and non-academic settings. Recent research demonstrates the challenge faced by technical communicators who assume responsibility for visual communication with little or no formal training in design or related fields [1]. Because many people now responsible for oversight, editing, and production of visual communication are primarily verbal communicators, we tend to either ignore matters of design or superimpose linguistic evaluation strategies onto images. The alternative model suggested here pulls from the rich scholarship based on Gestalt, narrative, and semiotic theories to shape an assessment heuristic that encourages visual assessment based on some foundational tenets of visual literacy.