Other Media in which Visual Thinking is Taught

Competing materials in this and other media are scarce. Other terms for what this product calls VisAbility are "visual thinking," "non-linear thinking," "lateral thinking," "spatial reasoning," "right-brain thinking," and "design competency." These terms were rejected and VizAbility coined because " it is inclusive instead of exclusive, and explicitly acknowledges the multiple modes of representation used in cognitive activities, while at the same time emphasizing a set of representation that is typically ‘invisible’ in formal academic training."

Indeed it is very "invisible." The only course material we found that specifically addresses its concerns in the same matter is the Robert McKim’s Experiences in Visual Thinking, the text on which the CD-ROM was based. This is a valuable and ground-breaking book, but it doesn’t have the multimedia components that are the hallmark of the VizAbility CD-ROM. Using multimedia for visual thought is as necessary a skill as VizAbility itself in a professional universe increasingly based on distance collaboration, so we would recommend the CD-ROM over the text-based materials.