Visual Literacy for Educators and Performance Specialist | Chapter 1

Glossary

Decorative Visual - a visual that does not have a strong association with instructional content. Added for aesthetic reasons.

Educational Design - Similar to instructional design, but focusing on materials for learning and long term memory. Transfer knowledge to a new and novel situations is the ultimate goal.

Electronic slides - Display software used in business and educational settings.

Instructional Design - Design that encompasses educational and performance design; the art and science of solving instructional problems and identifying their solutions.

Instructional Designer - A professional who analyzes instructional problems and their solutions and creates, implements, and tests appropriate interventions.

Interface - The message or cue between a system and a user such as a link or button on a computer screen, or headings, and page numbers in a document. These cues tend to provide navigational assistance to the user/learner.

Interpretive Visual- A visual that helps explain content.

Job Aids - Performance tools that help people perform a task at the time of need.

Just-in-Time- Instructional or task support available at the moment of need. E.g. instructions on the gas pump or automatic bank teller. Job aids are considered just-in-time support.

Literacy - A broad term describing the ability to be knowledgeable about a particular subject, traditionally that of reading and writing. We also have visual literacy in this case!

Organizational Visual - A visual that strengthens the structure and hierarchy of information and helps integrate information.

Performance Design - Design that helps people perform a task or job immediately.

Performance support - a tangible support that helps people do something at the moment of need (just-in-time). Maps, recipes, and instructions on a gas pump are types of performance support.

Powerpoint- an electronic slide software tool from Microsoft.

Representative Visual- A visual that carries the same information as the text or clearly identifies information to make it more concrete.

Slide-ware - Electronic slide display software.

Transformative Visual - Visuals that supplant new information into memory by making the information more memorable.

Typography - the art and science of letterform.

Universal Design - A usable design of products and environment, accessible to all people. Recently the term universal design has been used to address the larger context of design. Universal design employs principles (visual and otherwise) to create environments accessible to as many people as possible. Skills in visual literacy rely on a number of principles that also fall under the universal design umbrella.

User - The receiver of a message, also considered the audience. Learners are considered users who interact with instructional messages.

Visual Literacy - A group of acquired competencies for interpreting and composing visible messages. A visually literate person is able to (a) discriminate and make sense of visible objects as part of a visual acuity, (b) create static and dynamic visible objects effectively in a defined space, (c) comprehend and appreciate visual testaments of others, and (d) conjure objects in the mind's eye (Brill, Kim, and Branch, 2001)

Visual Literacy for Instruction and Performance Support - The ability to work with tools (type, shape, color, depth, and space) and actions (contrast, alignment, repetition, and proximity) to influence learning and performance. More specifically this could be described as the tools and actions necessary to facilitate cognitive processes of selection, organization, and integration.

Objc. becoming more visually literate on the composition sense. Creating compelling visuals is both art and a science.

Providing clear instructions is worthwhile because it preservers the user's mental energy for the important information rather than wasting that energy.

Questions to ask:

What information is critical to this job? How do I make the information the focus of attention.

The book uses the word Users as a way to identify the audience of each type of visual document.

What Exactly is a Visual?

• Semiotics and film/video conventions
• signs, symbols, and icons
• images and illustrations
• multi-images
• graphic representation

Saunders' Definition

• symbols (pictographic or abstract)
• maps graphsdiagrams illustrations or rendered pictures (realistic to abstract)models composite graphics (multi-images)photographs

Exploring the Gestalt Principles of Design

Resources

ideal length of a line.

Bookmark EDIT 5322

Save this for later reading - note to self: downloaded to the computer already.

Guiding notes from the instructor:

Here is the list of strategies from the chapter.

Strategies to reduce overload

• Stick to relevant graphics
• Simplify explanatory visuals
• Use thoughtful reduction to design data visualization
• Group images and text together
• Design text for comfortable reading
• Use layers and hotspots to manage levels of detail
• Use negative affordances to rule out options for learners Strategies to guide attention
• Support learning with visual hierarchy
• Support learner attention with conscious signals
• Use rules and rapid recognition Strategies to support visual perception
• Avoid color and texture faux pas
• Use luminance for visual detail
• Use depth selectively
• Support learning and learnability with color-coding Strategies to promote visual learning
• Translate large data sets into abstract graphics
• Stay clear of the lie factor
• Use segmenting, sequencing, and layering to tame complexity
• Avoid interference
• Use multiple representations
• Use a systematic approach