VISUAL PRINCIPLES

A). The Roles of Visuals in Instructions

•      Visual can also motivate learners by attracting their attention, holding their attention, and generating emotional responses.

•      Visual can simplify information that is difficult to understand.

•      Visual provide a redundant channel.

B). Visual Literacy

     Consider the sorts of visuals that are used every day for important communication purpose, such as the emergency information card in airplanes or highway signs that warn of dangerous curves or obstructions.

     They work only to the extent that you are “literate” in the conventions of that medium. Whereas the term literacy once was used only to refer to reading and writing of verbal information.

     Today we use the term visual literacy to refer to the learned ability to interpret visual messages accurately and to create such messages.

The critical role of visuals in education was recognized forcefully a century ago by Jhon Dewey (1987), probably the most influential American Philosopher of education :

“I believe much of the time and attention now given to preparation and presentation of lessons might be more wisely and profitably expended in training the student’s power of imagery and in seeing to it that he is continually forming definite, vivid, and growing images of the various subjects with which he comes in contact in his experience.”

Visual Literacy can be developed though two majors approaches:

-  Input strategies        :  Helping learners to decode, or “read” visual proficiently by practicing visual analysis skills (though picture analysis and discussion of multimedia and video programs.

-  Output strategies     : Helping learners to encode, or “write”  to express themselves and communicative with other (though planning and producing photo and video presentation).

     1. Decoding: Interpreting Visuals

          a. Developmental effects.

      Prior to the age of 12, children tend to interpret visuals section by section rather than as a whole, tend to summarize the whole scene and report a conclusion about the meaning of the picture. Hence, abstract symbols or a series of still pictures whose relationship is not clearly spelled out many fail to communicative as intended with younger viewers.

          b. Cultural effects.

      Different cultures groups may perceive visual material in different ways.

let’s say your instructions includes visuals depicting scenes typical of the home life and street life of inner-city children. It is almost certain that students who live in such an area will decode these visual differently than will students whose cultural (and socioeconomic) backgrounds do not include firsthand knowledge of inner-city living.

          c. Visual preferences

      People do not necessarily learn best from the kinds of pictures they prefer to look at. Research on picture preferences indicates that children in upper elementary grades tend to prefer color to black and white and to choose photographs over drawing, younger children tend to prefer simple illustrations, whereas older children tend to prefer moderately complex illustrations (Myair & Carter, 1979).

          d. Encoding: Creating Visuals 

      Children who have grown up constantly exposed to movies and television may expect the visuals they encounter in school to be similarly packaged and sequenced. They may need practice in arranging visuals into logical sequence, which is a learned skills, like the verbal sequencing in reading and writing. This chapter focuses on understanding visual design and doing visual displays into creative activities.

          e. Visual Literacy Education

      Media production, computer design and critical thinking skills can enhance students’ abilities to work and succeeded in an increasingly visual world. (diagram, hidden pictures, memory games, and video clips) to work alone or together on visual learning activities and develop communication, organization, and reporting skills in the procces.

C). Goals of Visual Design

     1. Ensure Legibility

The goal of good visual design is to remove as many  obstacles as possible that might impose transmission of your message ( specific guidelines on, for example, the size of letters appear later in this chapter.

     2. Reduce Effort

You will see how establishing an understanding pattern (alignment, shape, balance), putting like things together (proximity), and following a regular pattern in your treatment (consistency) contribute to this goal.

Using harmonious color combinations and figures that contrast with their background also play roles.

     3. Increase Active Engagement

Choosing a style appropriate for your audience and using appealing color schemes also will help you gain and hold your audience.

     4. Focus Attention

The overall design pattern plus specific directional guides (woven into the design and color cues) are your means for achieving the goal of focusing attention.

D). Process of Visual Design

     1. Elements

     We have grouped the following design suggestions according to the various elements or components of the display; the visual elements (choosing the type of visual), the verbal elements (lettering style and location), and the elements that add appeal (Surprise, texture, interaction).

          a. Visual Elements
      Realistic visuals show the actual object under study. For example, the color photograph of a covered wagon in figure 5.13 in a realistic visual.

      Analysis visuals convey a concept or topic by showing something else and implying a similarity. Such visuals help learners interpret new information in light of prior knowledge and thereby facilitate learning.

          b. Verbal Elements

     Most displays incorporate some type of verbal information in addition to visuals. At a minimum, you have to be sure that the lettering is legible in terms of size and spacing and of a style that is consistent with your intended message. 

              1. Letter Style

The style of the lettering should be consistent and should harmonize with the other elements of the visual.

               2. Number of Lettering Styles 

A display-or a series of related visuals, such as a slide series-should use no more than two different type styles, and these should harmonize with each other.

               3. Capitals

For best legibility, use lowercase letters, adding capitals only where normally required.

               4. Color of Lettering 

As discussed later in the section “Figure-Ground Contrast”, the color of the lettering should contrast with the background color both for the sake of simple legibility.

               5. Size of Lettering 

Displays such as bulletin boards and posters are often meant to be viewed by people situated at a distance of 30 or 40 feet or more.

                    6. Spacing Between Letters 

     The distance between the letter of the individual words must be judged by experience rather than on a mechanical basis.

                    7. Spacing between lines

     The vertical spacing between lines of printed material is also important for legibility.

                    8. Elements that add appeal

     Your visual has no chance of having an effect unless it capturea and holds the viewer's attention.

           2. Pattern

     The idea to establish pattern is to decide how the viewer's eye will flow across the display. The major factors that affect the overall look are alignment of elements, shape, balance, color scheme, and color appeal.

     a. Alignment : when you position the primary elements within a display so that they have a clear visual relationship to each other, viewers expend little effort making sense out of what they are seeing and are free to concentrate on understanding the message being conveyed.

     b. Shape : put them into a shape that is already familiar to the viewer.

     c. Balance : when the “weight” of the elements in a display is equally distributed on each side of an axis, either horizontally or vertically or both.

     d. Style : different audiences and different settings call for different design syles.

Color scheme : when choosing a color scheme for a display, consider the harmoniousness of the colors.

     e. Color appeal : artists have long appreciated that blue,green, and violet are considered “cool” colors, whereas red and orange are considered “warm” colors.

     3. Arrangement

Arranging the individual elements within the underlying pattern.

     a. Proximity : putting related elements close together and moving unrelated.

     b. Directionals : viewers scan a display, with their attention moving from one part to another.

     c. Figure-Ground Contrast : that dark figures show up best on light grounds and light figures show up best in dark grounds.

     d. Consistency : as viewers go through the series of images they begin unconsciously to form a set of rules about where information will appear in your display.

E). Visual Planning Tools

     1. Storyboards

     Several related overhead transparencies, a slide set, a video sequence, or a series of computer screens. This technique, borrowed from film and video production, allows you to creatively arrange and rearrange a whole sequence of thumbnail sketches.

     2. Types of Letters

     The simplest is freehand lettering with markers and felt-tip pens, which come in an array of colors and sizes. You also may use an available dekstop publishing system to prepare lettering in various styles and sizes.

     3. Drawing, Sketching, and Cartooning

     There are many sources of these in magazines, textbooks and advertising. Those are sources that can help you communicate effectively using those graphic media.

F). Digital Image

     As a computer technologies advance,creating visual images has moved into the digitalcamera to created original or may transfer images into digital formats using scaners. Digital images allows users to capture,edit,display share and network still and video images.

     a. Digital Cameras

     Digital cameras are small and lightweight with fewer moving parts than traditional cameras.instead of aquinting thought a tiny optical viewfinder,mosttal cameras permit you to see a large images display on the back of the camera before you take the picture.

     b. Scanners

     Scaners work with computers to transfer easisting visual images,such as drawings or photographs,students may quickly inscoeporate scanned images into a word processing file or enhance or change them using software.




Source : Heinich, Molenda, Russell, Smaldino et. 2002. Instructural Media  and Technologies for Learning volume 7. California: The University of California.