Everyone has an opinion about graphics. And more often than not, those opinions are simultaneously diverse and intense! There is no doubt that visuals grab our attention and command a response. But how do you know that the visuals included in your e-Learning lessons actually improve learning? That’s why my colleague Chopeta Lyons and I wrote a book on graphics based on research evidence that provides practitioners with guidelines for planning and designing the best graphics in their training materials. Here are some tips from the book that you may find useful.
- More Than Just Eye Candy: Part 1
- More Than Just Eye Candy: Part 2
Because it’s such a visual medium, it’s too bad that e-Learning so often fails to leverage the potential of graphics to promote learning. In some cases, e-Lessons are what our colleague Frank Nguyen of Intel calls A Wall of Words. (See Figure 1.) Because words are quick and easy to produce, and because we have all devoted lifetimes of learning and practice perfecting our use of language, all too many e-Lessons include no visuals or at best, only a few decorative visuals.
FIGURE 1 A screen from a “wall of words” course
At the other extreme some e-Courses use elaborate visual treatments to produce what I call Las Vegas-style courseware. By embedding dry technical content in exotic and visually rich fantasy or game themes, the developers try to make the learning experience more motivating. I’ve seen system application courses wrapped in a fantasy-adventure such as Terminator and new hire orientation embedded in a treasure hunt. (See Figure 2.) Elaborate visual treatments unrelated to the goals of the instruction, while well intended, have been shown in controlled research studies to depress learning.
FIGURE 2 An exotic fantasy theme used for edutainment. (Credit: Mark A. Palmer)
Both under-use and over-use of visuals fail to deliver the potential of graphics to support learning. So, just what makes a good graphic in e-Learning? Over the past 15 years, a considerable body of relevant research on the best use of visuals to promote learning has accumulated. However, most of this research is published in diverse academic journals not generally read by training professionals. Additionally, the research reports do not provide examples of how to apply the guidelines in training settings.
Do graphics improve learning?
The answer is — it depends! Many studies that compared lessons that used text alone to teach content with lessons that added relevant visuals to the text have shown that the versions with graphics do improve learning. Richard Mayer reported an average learning gain of 89% in lesson versions that added relevant visuals to text. Note the emphasis on the word “relevant”!
Three factors that shape graphic effectiveness
Not all graphics are equally effective. In fact, research reported in the Journal of Educational Psychology as long ago as 1998 shows that some visuals can actually depress learning compared to lessons that used text alone. So how can you plan and design graphic treatments for your e-Learning that are likely to enhance learning outcomes? Our research uncovered three main factors, illustrated in Figure 3, that shape the effectiveness of your visual treatments:
- the instructional goal,
- the learning landscape,
- and features of the graphic itself.
FIGURE 3 Three factors that shape design of effective visuals. © Ruth Clark and Chopeta Lyons
Factor 1: Goals of the instruction. In E-Learning and the Science of Instruction, Rich Mayer and I describe three main instructional goals for e-Learning:
- to inform,
- to support procedural (routine task) performance,
- and to support principle-based (non-routine task) performance.
Many courses incorporate all three goals. Usually however one of the three predominates. For example, many e-Learning courses are designed to teach systems applications. These are procedural courses. Most also have subgoals of informing learners about the application and its benefits to their work. But the main goal is to teach how to use the system.
Other e-Courses attempt to teach what we call far-transfer tasks — tasks which require employee judgment because the worker will always have to adapt guidelines to unique job situations. Many so-called softskills such as negotiation, selling, and supervision fall into this category. Both procedural and principle based courses are designed to build skills and thus support job performance directly.
Courses that inform are developed primarily to build awareness and often to promote positive feelings. Courses on new employee orientation or lessons on new company policies often fall into this category.
The instructional goal is one major factor to consider in the planning and design of visuals for learning. For example, a procedural course is going to include many graphics that illustrate the screens or equipment being trained. In contrast, many principle based courses use a problem centered learning approach in which the visuals illustrate a job setting in which the learner gets a virtual task assignment and learns new skills while working the assignment. Figure 4 shows a screen capture from a problem-centered learning course designed to teach bank agents how to assess a commercial loan.
FIGURE 4 A virtual workplace serves as a visual backdrop for problem-centered learning. (With permission from Moody’s Financial Services.)
Factor 2: The learning landscape. All visuals for training purposes will be displayed in some medium such as a workbook, a job card or on a computer screen. Likewise they will be presented in a specific instructional environment such as a job card affixed to equipment, or a slide projected in a classroom. e-Learning platforms offer various capabilities to display visuals and words depending on issues such as bandwidth, presence of sound cards, availability of headsets etc. Of course training programs are designed for specific groups of learners whose background and aptitudes also shape decisions about visuals. How much prior knowledge the audience has about the content and their spatial ability are two proven factors that influence the type of graphic that will improve learning. Last we can’t forget the practical realities of every project — things like budget, organizational standards and guidelines, and resources for graphics production.
The combination of these environmental factors makes each graphic design project unique. The design and display of visuals for systems training intended for novice learners to be delivered on platforms with plenty of bandwidth and sound capability will be quite different from the design and display of visuals for systems training to be delivered in a workbook destined for either self-study or classroom delivery. (See Figures 5 and 6.) Juggling all of these factors to make the best graphics decisions for each project is best achieved with a systematic process for assessing the landscape. In Part 2 of this article, Chopeta Lyons will preview this model.
FIGURE 5 A visual used to teach a systems application online
FIGURE 6 The same visual adapted for display in print media
Factor 3: Features of the graphic. It’s not surprising that features of the graphic itself will influence its learning effectiveness. What might be surprising however is that it’s NOT the features you typically associate with graphics that determine their learning effectiveness. Usually we talk about graphics in terms of their surface features.
By surface features I refer to the salient appearance of a visual. Is it an animation? Is it a line drawing? Is it a photograph? And while surface features are important to production of your graphics, in most cases, it is not surface features alone that determine their effectiveness. Instead, it’s the functionality of the graphic — both its communication and its psychological functionality. We recommend planning visuals based on how they communicate and how they work psychologically rather on their surface features. We propose that these functional taxonomies can give you a new grammar of visuals — a grammar that will help you make better decisions about how to use visuals for learning.
