The Power Of The Animated Explainer Video: Why 80% Of People Learn Best Through Visuals

If you want people to comprehend and accurately recall information, the best option is usually to use visuals to illustrate your point. And, yes, we’re well aware of the irony in communicating this concept using a text-based blog post!

Visual storytelling — used in our bespoke animated explainer videos and other forms of visual media — is highly effective because the vast majority of people retain information better when they can see it in action. In fact, two studies cited by the United States National Institutes of Health indicate that between 65% and 80% of all people are primarily visual learners.

It’s important to consider how (and why!) visual storytelling can help communicate complex ideas, a brand’s identity, instructions for complicated processes, and much more.

Why is visual learning so effective?

We’ve already noted that up to 80% of people learn and retain information better with visuals. In addition, according to the Gitnux Market Data firm, visuals account for 90% of all information transmitted to the brain. For most people, visuals provide the hook that secures a narrative in our minds, while audio or written content can provide important context and nuance to the images.

Even when we gather information by reading, our brains typically visualise it to help us understand the message. It’s a similar story with audio: Our brains simply do a better job of retaining information in the long term when we see it rather than hear it. In short, according to Gitnux, visual aids can improve learning outcomes by a whopping 400%!

There are advantages in the short term as well, as the brain also processes visual information faster and enables us to react more quickly. Believe it or not, the aforementioned Gitnux study says the human brain can process images roughly 60,000 times faster than text!

In other words, while it takes around five seconds to read a short sentence, you can communicate the same information using a picture, which only takes a fraction of a millisecond to comprehend. To be exact, it takes about 0.083 milliseconds for those of you keeping score at home. (That said, we did these maths by hand on the back of an envelope, so please don’t hold us accountable for any timing errors.)

Overall, visual learning has higher comprehension, generates more emotional responses, and improves motivation compared to other methods.

How can businesses use visuals to enhance information retention?

Using Sliced Bread Animation’s explainer videos as an example, this service is so popular with our clients — like Nestle, Danone, Royal Mail, and Takeda — because it’s incredibly effective. We use visuals to communicate complicated messages for marketing and education purposes in many different applications.

For instance, we’ve created hundreds of animations for clients in the healthcare niche, including explaining illnesses to patients and helping employees understand medical procedures. Our clients in the construction and engineering fields love how our videos help communicate rules and regulations, conduct safety training, and much more.

What’s even better is that these animated explainer videos cost much less to produce than more conventional methods of training and development. For instance, you’ll certainly spend considerably more on in-person trainings than on the creation of an explainer video that can be used again and again. This is even more true for large companies with many employees to train!

It’s also helpful to include some humour when using visual learning methods, as humour makes information even more effective and memorable. According to another study from the U.S. National Institutes of Health, research shows that the positive emotional responses generated by humour lead to improved information retention. Additionally, empirical studies support the concept of humour enhancing our memories, especially when used in the contexts of advertising, education, and research.

Conclusion

The same Gitnux study referenced earlier says that people recall 80% of what they see, 20% of what they read, and 10% of what they hear. Does that mean that this written blog would have been four times more impactful as a video? Perhaps!

To make a long story short, if you want to maximise the impact of your messaging, incorporating visual formats is the way to go. Get in touch with Sliced Bread Animation today to learn all about how our animated explainer videos can help you improve your communications for marketing, training, education, and so much more.