This document outlines 12 principles of multimedia design according to Jose Claro Miguel Perez. The principles are: coherence, signaling, redundancy, spatial contiguity, temporal contiguity, segmenting, pre-training, modality, multimedia, personalization, voice, and image. Each principle is explained through its statement, general idea, and reasoning. The principles aim to help people learn better from multimedia by excluding extraneous elements, highlighting essential information, integrating words and pictures, and designing in a way that considers human cognitive architecture.

1. 12 Principles of
Multimedia Design
CREATED BY: JOSE CLARO MIGUEL M.
PEREZ
2021-32375
5/8/2023
12 PRINCIPLES OF MULTIMEDIA DESIGN BY JOSE
CLARO MIGUEL PEREZ IS LICENSED UNDER
A CREATIVE COMMONS ATTRIBUTION-SHAREALIKE
4.0 INTERNATIONAL LICENSE..
1

2. Coherence Principle
• Principle: “People learn better when extraneous words, pictures, and
sounds are excluded rather than included”
• General Idea: People tend to understand the concept of the lesson more
when direct and concise
• Reasoning: Extraneous modes of multimedia (e.g., pictures, texts, sounds,
etc.) can create a misunderstanding towards the learning material (i.e., divert
learners’ attention, disrupt the organizing process of the material, integrate an inappropriate
theme towards the material)

3. Coherence Principle
• Principle: “People learn better when extraneous words, pictures, and
sounds are excluded rather than included”
• Rephrased General Idea: People Understand things Directly and
Concisely
• Rephrased reasoning: Extraneous Objects Create Misunderstanding
**Is this a bit, if not much easier to understand than the previous slide?**

4. “Do not make any when making a point,
rather be straight-to-the-point.”
First quote

5. Signaling Principle
• Principle: “People learn better when cues that highlight the organization of
the essential material are added”
• General Idea: People assimilate essential details than other things
• Reasoning: Cues reduce extraneous processing by guiding learner’s
attention
**This explains why many well-performing students highlight important words from their notes…**

6. Redundancy Principle
• Principle: “People learn better from graphics and narration than from
graphics, narration, and on-screen text”
• General Idea: On-screen text divert learner’s attention
• Reasoning: Redundancy create extraneous processing (i.e., cause an
overload on the visual channel and make learners expend mental effort)

7. Spatial Contiguity Principle:
Which is better?
vs
Video 1
Caption Texts here
Video 2

8. Spatial Contiguity Principle:
Which is better?
Video 1 is the right
answer!!

9. Spatial Contiguity Principle
• Principle: “People learn better when corresponding words and pictures are
presented near rather than far from each other on the page or screen”
• General Idea: Integrated words and pictures presentation promote
better learning
• Reasoning: Words near pictures (and vice versa) reduce extraneous
processing (learners need less mental effort to search the page/screen allowing more focus
towards the lesson’s concepts)

10. Temporal Contiguity Principle
• Principle: “People learn better when corresponding words and pictures are
presented simultaneously rather than successively”
• General Idea: Presenting pictures and words together promote better
understanding
• Reasoning: Allows learners to create mental connections between
verbal and visual representation

11. Take a minute break!!
Note: This is related to the next principle *wink*
This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA

12. Segmenting Principle
• Principle: “People learn better from a multimedia lesson is presented in
user-paced segments rather than as a continuous unit”
• General Idea: Learning is more efficient on user’s own pace
• Reasoning: Each person has their own set of pacing to efficiently
understand the lesson.

13. Pre-Training Principle
• Principle: “People learn better from a multimedia lesson when they know
the names and characteristics of the main concepts”
• General Idea: Pre-training promotes effective learning.
• Reasoning: Knowing the parts of the system first makes it easier to
learn relationships and connections within that system

14. Modality Principle
• Principle: “People learn better from graphics and narrations than from
animation and on-screen text”
• General Idea: Combining different modality promotes efficient learning
• Reasoning: Implementing narration enables learners to focus their
visual channel on graphics

15. Final minute break!!
You’re close to finishing this lesson, keep up the good work!!
This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA

16. Multimedia Principle
• Principle: “People learn better from words and pictures than from words
alone”
• General Idea: Graphic modalities aid for an effective understanding
• Reasoning: Learners can create relationship from both verbal and visual
mental models

17. Second Quote
“An describes what words can’t explain, and together they
give learning a wonderful experience”
I M A G E

18. Personalization Principle
• Principle: “People learn better from multimedia lessons when words are in
conversational style rather than formal style”
• General Idea: Conversational Style makes learning easier
• Reasoning: With learners viewing the lesson as their partner, they can
relate on the subject matter

19. Voice Principle
• Principle: “People learn better when the narration in multimedia lessons is
spoken in a friendly human voice rather than a machine voice”
• General Idea: Narration by human promotes learning
• Reasoning: Human voice gives voice cues, guiding learner’s educational
process

20. Image Principle
• Principle: “People do not necessarily learn better from a multimedia lesson
when the speaker’s image is added to the screen”
• General Idea: speaker’s image is extraneous if it is not directly related to
the lesson’s idea
• Reasoning: Causes learners’ attention to divert towards the image and
not on the lesson

21. Reference:
• Richard E. Mayer. Multimedia Learning. Cambridge University Press, 2009.
EBSCOhost, discovery.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=1bda6ed6-6456-
31ef-9f2a-dc01cf64dc61.