Using Visualization to create better solutions [Technique Tuesdays]

This is something that shows up all the time

Aug 16, 2022

Ever wondered why fields like Math, Computer Science, and Theoretical Physics are so hard,

Even for the people in the domain, who spend a lot of time learning the concepts, learning new ideas, and coming up with solutions, these fields are very tricky. It’s clearly a lack of domain knowledge or the fact they haven’t practiced enough. These are very smart people who have dedicated their whole lives to these fields.

Humans are visual creatures. Half of the human brain is directly or indirectly devoted to processing visual information. When we try to visualize something, we say we’re using the “mind’s eye”. Think about how much easier it is to understand concepts and ideas when you have a few visual aids, graphs, etc. Examples go on and on.

person showing green and black eyelid closeup photography — Our eyes are more important than you’r realize. Try standing on one leg, with your eyes closed. That is much harder than doing it eyes open. Photo by Arteum.ro on Unsplash

This is a well-known fact. But what does this have to do with anything? There’s a good chance, that a big roadblock when trying to solve such problems is an inability to visualize the nuances and prospective solutions properly. This can be very hard when handling abstract ideas like Data-Structures, various Algorithms, Algebraic sets, and higher dimensional spaces. But developing this skill will pay off in spades. You can use visualization and your amazing art skills to solve some really tricky problems. Let’s get right into it.

Important Points

Why Visualize- Visualization has several benefits. One it forces your mind to work extra and make connections. This can be great for learning ideas and identifying what areas you haven’t fully understood. I learned some of the trickiest concepts in AI using this. Using images and visual aids can also help you spot patterns, make ideas clear, and spot potential areas to build off. This is why so many mathematicians and computer scientists used sketches when creating their solutions. Einstein, for example, used thought experiments extensively as he revolutionized physics. We’ll cover more for your coding interviews later.
What are you supposed to visualize- If I gave you a word like ‘high dimensional data’ or an nD solution space, you will be very confused on how to visualize it. How is one supposed to visualize an algorithm or a solution to a Leetcode problem? If you’re stuck here, chances are you’re trying to visualize too much. Slow down. Try to think of specific components. Look at what you can imagine, sketch that out, and build that out from there. You’ll be shocked at how easy that is. Instead of imagining a whole scalable distributed system like IG (which will leave you overwhelmed), try to bite off atomic chunks and build up from there.
What this needs- Of course, this requires a good base in the components of the systems/solutions you’re imagining is a must. This is why I stress the importance of understanding the DSA and building your theoretical knowledge. The better your understanding, the more you can visualize, the more powerful this technique will be.
How to get good- The simplest way to do so is to get better is to watch more visualizations. There are tons of YouTubers that explain complex theoretical concepts in a visual manner. 3Blue1Brown, StatQuest, and RitvikMath are great resources for Math. ByeByteGo and SithDev are two of my current favorites for Computer Science/Coding. These are all people who can help you visualize complex topics. Once you watch enough of their videos, you will be able to start imagining very complex ideas much better. These people (and many that I will share in the future/have already shared) are exceptional resources that have helped me a ton and will do the same for you.
Practicing this- Once you start watching these guys, watch how they depict complex ideas. Then as you’re reading through writeups/API docs/problem statements, take some time to think about what you would visualize. Convert all the text you’re reading into images/sketches of the system working. For the tryhards amongst you, think off what parts of the solution you would replace/improve on. Where are the current bottlenecks? This will help you get better at visualization, boost your problem-solving, and make you a much better developer.
A note on your Leetcode Style Interviews- This technique is primarily meant to help you learn much quicker, and come up with rough solutions. However, you can also implement this into your Leetcode Style Interviews. Many people struggle with catching dynamic programming problems. My go-to for spotting it, is to sketch out the recursive call stack (use small inputs). Once you do that, you’ll be able to catch a lot of the repeated work, which is ideal for DP. This is why I suggest going for the brute force solution first, and then building from it. Once you have a brute force soln, visualization becomes much easier.
Building from Brute Force is something that has helped a ton of people out.

Still skeptical about this? I created a video a while back about how you could use Machine Learning to detect viruses. The important breakthrough that this team made was to turn those viruses into images. This allowed the teams to analyze and compare potential malware files and spot patterns that would otherwise be hidden. There are many other examples.

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