For our main blog post the Rob's would like to discuss how poos visual imagery has negatively impacted you. For example, I was working on putting together a chair in my daughter's room last week. The chair was from ikea and there are no written instructions it is 100% visual. They had a graphic of a person inserting a washer onto a bolt. Next to the washer was a number, which admittedly I ignored, when I got to the final step in putting together the chair I realized that there were both metal washers and plastic washers and I had, of course, used the wrong ones. So...I had to take the chair apart and put it back together with the correct washers in the correct locations. I am not sure how they could have made it clearer to me so that I could differentiate the two washers (plastic and metal) perhaps by making one filled in and one an outline but regardless I spent a lot of time and energy because I was not able to "read" their imagery correctly.
What about you? Have you ever had a negative experience with an visual imagery?
It's funny that you should mention this Rob because I have always considered myself a visual learner. But regardless of the platform, I find that instructions in all forms are lacking in one way or another. I also recently put together a dining room/chair set that had both visuals and word descriptions. It outlined each piece by letter and gave a description of each. So it was quite simple to distinguish what piece was what, however, the small clips that described actions left me extremely confused. I found it necessary to rely on the visuals provided because the lack of clarity on the written portion. I'm not sure why companies don't take their direction writing more serious. So I would be more curious to know if anyone has ever had any directions they didn't have to read a step at least 3 times before they attempted to accomplish it.
ReplyDeleteI think Ikea uses the same instructions regardless of what market they are selling their items. So the images for an English speaker have to work for a Swedish speaker and a Japanese speaker as well. Which, is a great idea but a huge undertaking and I think there are some things that are difficult to convey with only images.
ReplyDeleteI can definitely relate to poor visuals while trying to assemble an object! I think I've been the most negatively impacted by visual symbols while on bicycle trips in other countries. Having to interpret driving signals and road signage meanings for cyclists is a specific niche! That being said, for the most part, it was fairly easy to adapt after the initial difference shock.
ReplyDeleteWhen I visited Paris a few years ago I could not for the life of me figure out any of the symbols and of course nothing is in English so it made for an interesting experience.
ReplyDeleteI can't think of an issue I've had with visual imagery. However, I have had a recent positive experience. A few weeks ago, I put together my first Lego set. The directions were entirely in picture form. Each piece was clearly distinguished from others, and the directions were disinguished by the specific bags of parts. For example, the first set of directions were for bag "a."
ReplyDeleteYour first LEGO set was only a few weeks ago!!! Welcome to a world of block based fun.
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ReplyDeleteThis topic reminds me of something I learned in EDUC 641 (learning theories--I assume just about everyone here has taken that too?). According to social learning theory, learning can be enhanced if models describe their actions, the process they are demonstrating, why it should be done that way, etc. The verbal elaboration helps learners to process and retain that information. A similar idea of combining types of information seems to apply here; I bet most of us would agree that using text with the visuals would have helped. I do agree that the company could have visually represented plastic and metal in different ways, but some text other than numbers might be a good idea too...
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