Today Mark provided us with helpful information for our final assignment. This is great, very helpful indeed.

We had to evaluate visual design components, and explain how the screen design effectively addresses the principle of visaul design.

We looked at the following components:

• What is multimedia
• Principles of multimedia
• Visual Design
• Colour
• CARP

Overall I thought the exam was okay, we had a lot of guideance from Mark.

Hopefully I did okay on the exam.

Reference: Williams, R. 1994, The Non-Designer’s Design Book, Peachpit Press, USA

Contrast

Contrast can be the most important visual aspect of a page. The principle is to avoid elements on the page that are merely similar – if they are not the same – then make them VERY different.

Purpose:

§         To create interest

§         Aid in the organisation of information

§         Supports visual hierarchy

Eg. use of colour

Repetition

Repeat visual elements throughout – colour, shape, etc. Develops organisation and strengthens the unity.

Purpose:

§         To unify and add interest

§         For consistency

Eg. navigation, colour identifiers, layout – anything your learner may visually recognize.

Avoid repeating the element so much that it becomes annoying and distracts from the message

Alignment

Nothing should be placed on your page randomly. Every element should have some visual connection with another element on the page.

This creates a clean, sophisticated look.

Purpose:

§         To unify and organize your page design

§         Be conscious of where you place your elements – always try to find something that aligns them

Avoid:

§         More than 1 type of text alignment on the same page

§         Don’t always centre align

Proximity

Items relating to each other should be group close together.  Items in close proximity become one visual unit rather than several separate, unrelated units.

Purpose:

§         Reduces clutter and confusing your reader

§         Organizes information – reduces cognitive load

§         Logical information is more likely to be remembered

Review the Colour Matters site and determine why some colours appear to hurt the eye!

The Psychology of Colour

Because of their power to provoke reactions in us, we use colours for their symbolic meaning. It is no accident that fire engines are painted red; red is a hot colour and denotes the idea of danger. Police uniforms are blue; being a cool colour, blue projects the idea of being under control, being calm and collected.

You can use colours in your visual designs to convey a mood, create an association or express your feelings about a particular event, activity or object.

Choose colours to convey the following:

q     Aggression – Red

q     Friendly – Light Blue, pastel colours

q     Solid – Balck

q     Weak – Light Pink

q     Serious – Navy Blue

Selecting Colours

Many things will affect your choice of colour. Consider the situation and choose your colours wisely. Think about the following factors.

Fashion

The mass market
Strong and bold colours are used to attract the mass market. Advertisers usually use primary colours because they are the most appealing colours to the bulk of the population.

The environment

Culture
Culture and history shape colour choice. If you visit Asia you will find temples painted in bright, primary colours. A European church is more likely to have more sombre colours.

Exploring Visual Design

“At the beginning of a project, the screen is a blank canvas, ready for you, the multimedia designer, to express your craft. The screen will change again and again during the course of your project as you experiment, as you stretch and reshape elements, draw new objects and throw out old ones, and test various colors and effects – creating a vehicle for your message…many multimedia designers are known to experience a mild shiver when they pull down the New… menu and draw their first colors onto a fresh screen…this screen represents a powerful and seductive avenue for channelling creativity.”

Tay Vaughan, 1998

Visual design takes the composite of elements: text, symbols, photos, colours, video, in fact any graphic element and much more, to communicate your message – it is your primary connection with the learner.

Visual design is the process of producing visual images that are able to communicate information to other people.

Visual images are made up of lines, colours, textures, tones, hues and shapes applied in a spatial composition. We are surrounded by visual images in our everyday lives. Each visual image is trying to tell us something.

 

To produce images that people understand, you need to consider the following:

1. What message are you trying to communicate?
2. What audience are you trying to communicate with?
3. What is the best way to visually communicate that message?
4. What are the elements and tools necessary to produce the visual image?

Complete the quiz in UTSOnline – Visual & Interaction Design – available in the Course Information tab.

Understanding Perception

When you look at a visual image you see lines, shapes, colours, tones, hues and objects in a spatial dimension.

The eye collects visual information from these images and objects and this information is transmitted to the brain. The brain interprets and constructs meaning from this visual information.

To design visual images that are meaningful to an audience you need to understand the way your audience actually sees. That is, how does the eye collect visual information and how does the brain interpret it? This line of inquiry is called the science of perception.

Discovering the way the eye works will help you understand how visual elements function in visual design.

Understanding Visual Communication

No two people ever see the same thing quite the same way. Cultural differences, the level of acquired knowledge, an individual’s psychology and socialisation will all affect the way we construct meaning from a visual image.

Physiology can also affect the way a person sees. The eye itself can have defects in the retina lens or suffer from colour blindness. The brain can also have its own problems that affect perception such as brain dysfunction, and alcohol and drugs.

To cater for these differences in perception you need to construct a clear, unambiguous image and know your audience well enough to construct visual images that they will easily recognise and comprehend. For example, a road sign needs to communicate its message to a wide audience instantaneously.

Example.

• Describe the screen layout:

• Visual hieirarchy: (evaluate the use of contrast to draw attention to the key elements)

• Placement of graphics: (evaluate in terms of multi-media principles, and Alignment and Proximity principles)

• Style of graphics: (Describe in terms of appropriateness, and multi-media coherence principles)

• Use of colours: (Do the selected colours enhance or distract from the learning content?)

• Do you consider the visual design effective from a learning perspective?

Why/why not?

Some of the sites we looked at:

Sydney Morning Herald

• Common mistake, graphic not related to the context
• Size of graphic matters
• Colour Sky blue, easy on the eyes (Australian Company prefer to use sky blue in corporations)
• A lot of movements and animation, can be confusing

BBC – UK news website

• Use of bright colours

CNN

• Use more graphics on the left hand side

Mc Donalds

• Really simple to use
• Less words, interactive, not 3D
• Cognitive thinking, simple information, information per page
• Not to many information on the screen
• Use of red back ground – bold statement, hard on the eyes

For example, a multimedia instructional message in a book could include printed text and illustrations, whereas a multimedia instructional message on a computer could include narration and animation.

Examples of multimedia instructional messages include words and pictures intended to explain how lightning storms develop, how car braking systems works, and how a bicycle tyre pumps work.

Richard Mayer, p.21

Multimedia Learning

READ:
Mayer, Richard E. & Moreno, Roxana 2003, Nine Ways to Reduce Cognitive Load in Multimedia Learning in Educational Psychologist, 38 (1), pp43-52.
(PDF File in Subject Documents folder in UTSOnline)

7 Principles of Multimedia Design

1. Multimedia principle: Students learn better from words and pictures than from words alone.

1. Spatial Contiguity Principle: Students learn better when corresponding words and pictures are presented near rather than far from each other on the page or screen.

1. Temporal Contiguity Principle: Students learn better when corresponding words and pictures are presented simultaneously rather than successively.

1. Coherence Principle: Students learn better when extraneous words, pictures, and sounds are excluded rather than included.

1. Modality Principle: Students learn better from animation and narration than from animation and on-screen text.

1. Redundancy Principle: Students learn better from animation and narration than from animation, narration, and on-screen text.

1. Individual Differences Principle: Design effects are stronger for low-knowledge learners than for high-knowledge learners and for high-spatial learners rather than low-spatial learners.

Now consider your course and make notes where multimedia may be of value:

Task:

Consider the media elements in your design – use the questions above as a guideline if you are using animation, video or sound.

What are your recommendations?

Provided examples of multimedia elements you would recommend.

“Multimedia is an eerie wail as two cat’s eyes appear on a dark screen.

It’s a small window of video laid onto a map of India, showing an old man recalling his dusty journey to meet a rajah there…”

Tay Vaughan, 1998, Multimedia: Making it Work

Multimedia is understood to mean a product that is digitally constructed utilising and seamlessly integrating various media: text, graphics, images, video, animation and sound.

Multimedia enriches the user through medias and technologies with the intention of engaging people’s minds!

Initially the delivery of multimedia products was via CD-ROM, but the internet provided a global distribution system that changed the structure and style of the multimedia products.

High levels of interactivity are now achievable using a range of software that runs on almost any current desktop computer.

The future of multimedia will be even more challenging as a plethora of delivery systems and displays are marketed. Enhanced program material provided on digital television and internet information displayed on mobile phones are just two examples of new multimedia systems.

Our notion of multimedia needs to encompass all new forms.

Review the following websites:

Examples of Multimedia in e-Learning

http://www.adrworkshops.com

From the map, click on Australia, then Test your Skills in the left-hand column, choose a scenario

http://www.listeningadventures.org

Carnegie Hall – learn about a Dvorak Symphony

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/lj/victorian_britainlj/sour_entry.shtml?site=history_victorianlj_sour

The BBC have a huge variety of e-Learning short course – try this one and see if you can improve Victorian Britain’s living conditions!

http://www.howstuffworks.com/toilet.htm

An amazing site full of all sorts of resources – this is a particular favourite!

http://www.cadre.com.au

Cadre Design are a Sydney based multimedia design company – from the home page, click on the Education link, this will take you to the Showcase. Click on the first example – the Astronomy site. Examine the possibilities (maybe learn something too)!

How do you define multimedia in today’s e-Learning context?

Compare this to the experiences with the Web 2.0 technologies and the issues raised in the Seely-Brown article.

“Multimedia is”

• Behaviourism – Study behaviour and learning from a scientific approach – only observable and measurable behaviour are reliable.
• They explain human behaviour in terms of cause and effects – therefore learning is a modification of behaviour by application of stimuli, shaping of response and the provision of reinforcement
• Learning is demonstrated in the response or behaviour of the leaner
• Practice of feedback

Classical Conditioning – Pavlov’s Dogs

• The learner dos is conditioned (learns) to emit a response (dribble) which wad originally a natural response to another stimulus (food) to a new stimulus (a bell)
• Classic conditioning can also be demonstrated by our ability generalise our responses to stimuli

Eg. A household drill may cause a reaction for a person that has an experience with a dentist’s drill.

Operant Conditioning

• Skinner argues that people learn ti behave in ways that help them obtain things they want tor avoid things they don’t want
• Reinforcement is used (money, promotions, success, praise etc) to increase the likelihood of the desired response being repeated.

http://www.uncc.edu/webcourse/sb/storyboard.htm

We will be developing course storyboards based on the simple or graphical storyboards

Storyboard: flow chart

• gliffy.com
• inspiration.com
• vue.uit.tufts.edu