Designing Visual Media for Education

See how the Principles of Multimedia Use and Visual Design transformed my course survey report
GIF shows screenshot of the initial draft of my 1 page course survey report transforming into screehshot of the final product with these principles applied

 

Using Multimedia 

Mayer laid out principles for using multimedia in education and training. This helps you make sure you are using multimedia in a way that benefits instead of burdens. These principles should be used not only with static images but also with time-based media like video and audio recordings. 

How could adding visual or audio pieces to my content actually burden the learner? This has to do with the theory of cognitive load. When incorporated in certain ways, multimedia can overload the learners ability to process the information you actually want them to learn. Thus, the visuals, audios or videos can get in the way of achieving learning outcomes. When not used with these principles in mind, visuals (or audio, video, games, simulation, VR, AR etc) can be barriers and not aids to learning. These principles don't only guide how to use multimedia but also how to choose what to use and what not to use.

  • Coherence: Exclude extra text and media
  • Signaling: Use cue to highlight the organization and importance of different elements
  • Redundancy: Learning is better with just narrated graphics but worse when narrated graphic is presented with text
  • Segmenting: Allow user-paced segments rather than continuous lesson 
  • Modality: Learning is better with narrated graphics than with animation plus on-screen text
  • Personalization: Use conversation style language
  • Voice: Use audio narration that is in a friendly human voice
  • Image: Seeing the speaker's face on the screen does not improve learning. 

See how each principle is used in different education examples and read about their relationship to the cognitive load theory (page 59 - 70)

 

Can you see where Mayer's principles were used in this video?



Visual Design

There's a plethora of information on visual design principles. I found Canva's infographic on the 20 Most Important Design Principles Illustrated to be among some of the best.

See each principle in action in design examples on their webpage on Design Elements and Principles

 

The Transformation

Here is the final product designed with these principles in mind, deconstructed


btw, making a GIF out of anything on Windows 10 is a breeze with Chrome Capture

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