Visuals play an important role in instruction by providing concrete examples, attracting attention, and simplifying complex ideas. Effective visual design ensures legibility, reduces effort to interpret the message, and increases engagement. The process of design involves selecting elements, choosing a pattern, and arranging elements while checking that goals are met. Elements include visual and verbal components selected based on goals, and patterns organize elements through principles such as alignment, shape, and balance.

1. Visual Principles
(Heinich, R; Molenda, M; Russell, JD; & Smaldino, SE. (2002). Instructional Media and Technologies for Learning. 7th ed. New Jersey:
Prentice-Hall.)
Role of Visuals in Instruction:
- Provide a concrete referent for ideas
- Serve a more easily remembered link to the original idea
- Can motivate learners by attracting their attention, holding their attention, and
generating emotional responses
- Can simplify information that is difficult to understand
- Serve as an organizing function by illustrating relationships among elements (i.e.
flowchart or timeline)
- Provide a redundant channel – they present information in a different modality
Goals of Visual Design:
- Ensure legibility
o Remove as many obstacles as possible that might impede transmission of your
message.
- Reduce the effort required to interpret the message
o Convey message in a way that viewers expend little effort making sense out of what
they are seeing and are free to use most their mental effort for understanding the
message itself.
- Increase viewer’s active engagement with the message
o Make your design as appealing as possible – to get viewers’ attention and to entice
them into thinking about your message
- Focus attention on the most important part of the message
o Direct the attention of your viewers to the most important parts of your message
Process of Visual Design
1. Elements : Selecting and assembling the verbal/visual elements to incorporated into the
display
2. Pattern: Choosing an underlying pattern for the elements of the display
3. Arrangement: Arranging the individual elements within the underlying pattern
4. Check decisions against the goals.
5. Revise as needed.

2. Elements:
- In selecting or producing the pictorial and text elements, base your choices on achieving
the visual design goals.
- Includes: visual, verbal, elements that add appeal
o Visual Elements – type depends on the learning task
 Realistic
 Analogic – implies similarity
 Organizational – include flowcharts, graphs, maps, etc.
o Verbal Elements
 Letter Style – should be consistent and should harmonize with the visual
elements
 Number of Lettering Styles
– no more than two different type of styles and should harmonize with
each other
- limit number of variations (e.g. bold, italic, underline, size changes) to a
maximum of four
Ex. Two different type sizes + italics + underlining
Three different type sizes + bold
 Capitals
- use lowercase letters, adding capitals only where normally required
- short headlines may appear in all capitals
- phrases of more than 3 words and full sentences should follow the rule of
lowercase lettering
 Color of Lettering
- color of lettering should contrast with the background color
 Size of Lettering
- displays (bulletin boards/posters) are meant to be viewed at a distance of 30
or 40 ft or more
- Common Rule of Thumb: lowercase letters = ½ inch high for each 10 ft
distance
 Spacing
 Spacing Between Letters
- should appear even to the eye (optical spacing)
 Spacing Between Lines
- vertical space between lines should be slightly less than the average
height of the lowercase letter
o Elements that Add Appeal
 Surprise
 Texture
 Interaction

3. Pattern (overall look)
o Alignment – to establish visual relationships
- elements are perceived to be aligned when the edges of those elements
are aligned on the same imaginary horizontal or vertical line
o Shape – put visual and verbal elements into a shape that is already familiar to the
viewer
Rule of Thirds:
- elements arranged along any of the one-
third dividing lines take on importance and
liveliness
*The most dominant and dynamic position
is at any of the intersections of the horizontal
and vertical one-third dividing lines,
especially the upper left intersection

4. o Balance – achieved when weight of the elements in a display is equally distributed
on each side of an axis, either horizontally or vertically or both
Symmetrical = formal
Asymmetrical = informal = catches the eye – rough equivalence of
weight but different elements
on one side
o Style – choice of lettering and type of pictures should be consistent with each other
and with the preference of the audience
o Color Scheme – consider harmoniousness = complementary colors (refer to color
wheel)
o Color Appeal – consider the emotional response you are seeking – an active,
dynamic, warm feeling or a more contemplative, thoughtful, cool feeling
- consider the age and cultural background
Cool Colors: blue, green, violet – tend to recede = used for backgrounds
Warm Colors: red and orange – appear to approach the viewer = used for
highlighting/cuing

5. Arrangement
o Proximity – put related elements close together and move unrelated elements apart
o Directionals – directs attention (e.g. arrow, bold key words, bullets, colors)
o Figure-Ground Contrast – dark figures show up best on light grounds and light
figures show up best on dark grounds
o Consistency – be consistent in your arrangement of elements (placement, color, and
text treatment)
- enhanced when similar elements are placed in similar locations, same
text treatments are used for headlines, and same color scheme are used
throughout the series of displays