Week 06 · lesson

Images and Charts Need a Reason to Exist

A visual earns space when it does a job that text alone would do worse: show a relationship, reveal a pattern, orient the audience, or provide evidence.

A stock photo of someone pointing at a laptop may make a slide look “finished.” It usually adds very little information.

Give every visual a role

Useful roles include:

evidence — chart, screenshot, measured result;
mechanism — diagram showing how parts connect;
comparison — two states or options side by side;
orientation — map, labeled interface region, timeline;
example — concrete instance of the idea.

Write the role before choosing the visual.

Source and permission travel with the image

Finding an image through Google Images does not grant reuse rights. A search engine is a discovery tool, not a license.

For a reused visual, record enough information to trace the source and permission. Depending on the source, that can include creator, page URL, license, and change note.

If the rights are unclear, choose another visual or make an original diagram from your own information.

Intellectual-property rules create tradeoffs

Copyright and licensing rules are not only restrictions. They can protect a creator's ability to control, credit, or earn from original work. They can also make reuse slower or impossible when permission is unclear, especially when someone wants to remix or publish a resource for a new audience.

Open licenses try to make that tradeoff more explicit. A Creative Commons license can tell you in advance which kinds of sharing or adaptation are permitted and what conditions travel with the work.

Analyze these three cases before choosing your reused visual:

Case	Benefit of the rule/license	Constraint on reuse	Better decision
copyrighted image with no reuse permission stated	creator retains control	you cannot assume permission to republish it	choose another source or request permission
CC BY image	reuse terms are clear and creator receives credit	attribution is required	reuse with traceable credit
your own original diagram	you control the source and meaning	you are responsible for accuracy and accessibility	document it as original work

Write one sentence explaining how an intellectual-property rule can help creation or sharing, and one sentence explaining how the same kind of rule can limit reuse. The point is not to decide that copyright is simply good or bad. The point is to recognize the tradeoff and make a defensible choice.

Worked visual choice

Topic: Why a shared link can fail.

Option A: generic photo of students at laptops.

Option B:

CALENDAR EVENT
      ↓
  DRIVE LINK
      ↓
 PERMISSION
      ↓
  RECIPIENT

Option B carries the mechanism. The audience can inspect the failure path.

Charts need the same discipline

A chart should answer a question. If the chart exists only because Sheets offered a chart button, it is decoration with axes.

Before importing a chart into Slides, record:

question;
dataset/source;
chart type;
scale/context;
one supported observation;
one unsupported conclusion.

Build a Visual Source Record

Choose two visuals for your storyboard:

one original visual you make yourself, such as a simple diagram;
one reusable visual or data chart with clear source/permission.

Record:

Visual	Job	Creator/source	Permission/license	Modification	Why it is needed

Failure mode: citation without permission

Giving credit is good scholarship, but attribution alone does not automatically grant permission to reuse every copyrighted image. Source, license, and intended use are separate questions.

Keep the Visual Source Record. Week 8's capstone defense will expect you to explain not just where a visual came from, but why it belongs.