Ashley Caudill Main Post: Tips for Creating E-Learning Visuals

Most of us will have to create visuals sometime in our career, but what makes a great visual versus a bad one? Inserting a random picture makes my visual more effective, right? Should I use a bulleted list or infographic? Do visuals really make a difference?

Most of us have probably asked ourselves some of these questions or similar ones. If you are like me, you might get nervous when creating visuals for new clients or might not know where to even start.

Luckily, SHIFT E-Learning has created a checklist to help avoid common mistakes when creating visuals. Most people associate the “4 Cs” with diamonds, but this checklist is the “5 Cs”… not as exciting as diamonds, but this will probably end up being more useful to you in the long run.

Here is what I took away from the checklist:

Clear: Make sure the message you are trying to convey is clear. Use images with a purpose, if the image doesn’t help the user understand the content better, DON’T USE IT!

Concise: Visuals should represent information related to the content, if it doesn’t get the point across, doesn’t make sense, or makes the content more confusing, DON’T USE IT!

Connected: Make sure all elements on your graphic relate to the information you are explaining. Learners shouldn’t have to make the connection themselves, it should be understood.

Compelling: When working with visuals make sure they are both eye-catching and related to the topic at hand. Visuals should reiterate the information presented.

Consistent: Make sure the visuals have the same feel and look throughout your entire presentation or course. Staying consistent in the visuals will help brand your course.

Hope these “5 Cs” will help you when creating visuals in the future. Do you have a certain set of rules you follow? Do you agree with this checklist? Do you think there should be more or less rules?

Here is a link to the article if you are interested:
http://www.learndash.com/tips-for-creating-elearning-visuals/


Source: J. Ferriman. (2015, January 14). Tips For Creating ELearning Visuals. Retrieved from http://www.learndash.com/tips-for-creating-elearning-visuals/

Visual Literacy is an acquired skill!

I spent the morning looking at articles published in the Journal of Visual Literacy. One of the more surprising (and interesting) articles covered the results of a recent study of the visual literacy skills of Millennial learners. The article was entitled Visual Literacy and the Digital Native: Another Look. 

The survey research, which was conducted by Emanuel and Challons-Lipton and published in 2013, examined whether 358 college students (Millennials) were able to correctly identify 5 well-known photographs (like the attack on the Twin Towers in 2001), 5 common symbols (like the Facebook logo), and 5 "famous" paintings (like Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh). The researchers were interested in exploring the students' ability to correctly identify common symbols, photos, and paintings because Millennials have been raised with a variety of digital media and consequently are considered to be more "visually aware" than prior generations. The study indicated that, in general, the students were not able to accurately identify the photos, symbols, or paintings. 27% of the respondents said that they recognized all 5 of the photographs, whereas 23% said they recognized all of the symbols, and 3% recognized all of the paintings. Unfortunately, the participants in the study were somewhat overconfident about their ability to identify visual images. The researchers found that only 14% of the respondents were able to correctly identify the photographs, only 4% were able to identify all of the symbols (correctly), and only 1% was able to correctly identify all of the paintings! So, basically, their confidence in their ability to correctly identify these images was somewhat inflated. 

What are your thoughts about the results of this study? Do you think this was a fair assessment of visual literacy? If you participated in a similar study, do you think you would you be able to identify the images? 

If you are interested in reading the complete study, you can access it through the JMU Libraries:

Emanuel, R. & Challons-Lipton, S. (2013) Visual Literacy and the Digital Native: Another Look. Journal of Visual Literacy, Vol. 32, No. 1, pp. 7-26.

A crash course in everything font related...

I know class is over, but in case you're still out here looking at the blog, I thought this was a pretty good, simple website for  a crash course in typography...and a quick and easy reference.

http://practicaltypography.com/