Illustrations! when, where and why

Let’s start with a confession. I own a Unicorn’s onesie. Actually, I own two of them. I have made a conscious, adult decision to purchase every item that contains illustrations, the color pink and sparkles I come across. The onesies happen to check all of the above. 

And now, armed with that knowledge about me, you will find it as no surprise that I LOVE illustrations, and using them in my work. My manager wasn’t surprised either, when I suggested adding illustrations to out homepage. However, this is where I encountered my first obstacles:

A. I was shocked to discover that my manager does not share my enthusiasm for Unicorns (I’m still investigating how could it happen).

B. He had a simple question. Why? Why should we use illustrations, how are they will contribute and where should we incorporate them?

Honestly, he made a compelling argument.

The advantages of using illustrations

It’s easier for us to understand information using illustrations.

Let’s kick off with some history. One of our very first means of communication were illustrations, way before any form of modern writing. as a matter of fact, cave drawings from over 35,000 years ago were recently found, so communicating through illustrations is something we’ve been practicing for a long time.

This didn’t happen by chance, a big part of our brain is devoted for visual processing and researchers claim that over 90% of the information we process is visual. Because our ability to take in and process visual elements is so impressive, we’re able to understand an idea much quicker if it was conveyed using visuals. In this research, people who followed illustrated instructions were 323% more successful than people following non illustrated instructions.

Illustrations help bridge cultural gaps

To convey an idea in writing, we need to create multiple versions of our text according to the different languages of our readers. When we use illustration, we can convey the same idea to people who don’t share a common language. A great example would Ikea’s manuals. Instead of written instructions in numerous different languages, Ikea have illustrated manuals, and they work incredibly well for users from around the world.

Illustrations add delight to our products.

I assume you’ve already heard about the term “Delight”, it’s a serious buzzword right now.

This term describes an experience that makes our users feel pleasure or extreme satisfaction. Users will always look for that special bond, something that will make us fall in love with a product. If we were lucky enough to find a product that special, there’s a good chance we will stay loyal to that product and choose it over the competition. Illustrations that create a delightful experience not only help us convey the idea of our product, they help us inject content and character into a product that otherwise, might have been a bit boring.

Try to think of an illustrated product you like, why did you choose this product over the competition? Mailchimp might be the perfect example — Mailchimp beautifully highlight the important moments users experience and they make those moments unforgettable. For example, When you’re just about to send your newsletter you will come across an illustrated GIF of a sweaty finger moments from pushing the send button. With that, Mailchimp were able to capture and transform the exhilarating moment of pushing that button, a true magic moment. That small but very special experience was memorable for me and made me think of their product as more than just a work tool. But we will talk more about mailchimp later on.

A magic moments and delight experience can also be created by surprising your users. A great example for that is Slack’s 404 page. While a user was expecting to view the page he was looking for, he accidentally arrived to an error page stating the page doesn’t exist. Instead of directing the user to another page, Slack used this page to transfer a truly one of a kind experience that surprises us for the best.

So far we went over some of the advantages illustration can offer for your product’s user experience. HOWEVER, these advantages would also work well with using different kinds of visual elements such as photography. So why did I choose to focus strictly on illustrations?

Illustrations spark your user’s imagination.

Illustrations grow your imagination. When we use photography we limit the imagination of our users to what is presented before them. Illustrations give our users just the right amount of room for interpretation and help them imagine themselves in that situation. While It might be hard to identify ourselves with a person in a photo, an illustration without any identifying features makes it much easier to identify with and imagine ourselves in that situation.

The ability to identify with an illustration creates a more personal experience for the users and a more memorable one to that extent.

I’m convinced! But how should I use illustrations?

Illustrations can prove useful in various locations throughout your product. You’ll need to decide how dominant you want illustrations to be with your product’s experience. 

How should I use illustrations?

Illustrations as the identity of your brand

The most common method of using illustrations is when they dictate the brand’s identity. In those cases it’s more likely the illustrations will appear in the site and marketing materials of the product and in more rare times, in the product itself as well. The connection between brand and illustration helps create a more memorable product who stands out against the competitors and offers a better user experience.

Those illustration are not there to “decorate” the brand, but rather to be a part of the experience and help users understand the product and the product’s values. (Remember delight? This is exactly what illustration should help us achieve in this case). We also don’t want our illustration to grab attention from our product, they are their to help, not to seize the user’s attention away from the function or information.

To create that special experience, there must be a unified language between the illustration and the UI. It’s also important to keep all the illustration in the same language, otherwise things can get messy. One of the more interesting examples is Oscar.

Oscar is a health insurance company, not the most exciting product in the world. But by using illustrations, Oscar were able to set themselves apart from their competitors and be memorable with their fresh take on healthcare.

Oscar are far from being the only company to use illustration. Let’s view more examples of companies who uses illustration as a core element in their brand:

Mixpanel — an analytics tool. They introduced this illustrated redesign about 18 months ago. Many other brands were quickly inspired by it and followed in their footsteps.

Shopify — A platform for online stores. Shopify went through a redesign which included their illustrations. In their site you’ll see original and unique illustrations that follow the content and strength it.

Slack — An IM platform for internal office communication. Their new branding was just released a few weeks ago and it really suits the slack experience. If you ever used slack you probably noticed the light tone of the content and their young vibe. Their new and illustrated website helps communicate those important values.

An illustrated Mascot

A good mascot is a symbol we identify with and the face of our brand. The mascot gives life and character to our product, helps our users connect to it and creates a memorable user experience. One of the most known examples is Freddie, the friendly chimp we all know from mailchimp. Freddie appears in different pages, helps us learn how to use the product and even tells a few jokes here and there.

As any other illustration, our mascot should be used thoughtfully and benefits the experience. It should help the user rather than distracting them.

An illustrated Onboarding experience

As I mentioned before, explaining something with clear visuals makes it easier for our users to understand. One research found that with written or oral instructions, after just 3 days users only remembered 10%-22% from the information they learned. When we have a product with a dedicated onboarding experience, using visual elements might be a crucial in helping users understand the product. Instead of creating a long tedious experience that will cost us in the loss of many users, we can create a fun and clear experience.

If we were able to create a good process, we won’t only explain the product but we will also showcase our product as approachable and easy to use, and increase our retention while doing so.

Illustrations in Social Media

When we promote our product on Social Media, whether it’s through adds, posts or tweets, we want obviously want potential users to notice them. Using illustration can increase our chances by A LOT. Buzzsumo found that Facebook posts with images get 2.3x more engagement than without an image. A similar behaviour can be found on twitter, buffer found that tweets with images got 150% more retweets than those without an image.

Illustration in Social Media provide more artistic approach. The decisions we make here won’t affect the product and don’t have to follow our style guide. This allows you to try out different illustration and styles to see how your target audience responses to them.

When illustrations go bad

Illustrations are awesome. They are powerful tools and cary many advantages that we can incorporate in various ways across our product. Now let’s forget all that and talk about when to NOT use illustrations.

Illustration won’t work with every product in the market, they should compliment the experience we want our users to have. Let’s take a radical example, do you think illustrations will work on a website such as ‘save the children’? Do you think illustrations could emphasize the values and message of that site? In that case illustrations might come across as disrespectful or might even harm the image of the site. 

Illustrations can work very well with serious subjects but they should be used thoughtfully. After months of researching and creating illustrations, my manager and I stopped to examine the results and we realized this is not going to happen. We weren’t able to create the right illustration to support our idea and emphasize our core values. Although I really wanted to incorporate illustrations, it’s important to know when it doesnt’ work and not to force it.

But don’t worry, I still love unicorn onesies and I hope you too.

*This article was first published last year in Hebrew in create magazine and in English in Medium.