Visuals play important roles in instruction by providing concrete referents, motivating learners, and simplifying complex information. Effective visual design considers visual elements, patterns, and arrangement. Elements include realistic, analogic, and organizational visuals as well as consistent verbal elements like letter style and size. Effective patterns apply principles of alignment, shape, balance, style, and color scheme. Arrangement maximizes proximity of related items, uses directional cues, and employs figure-ground contrast and consistency. Proper visual planning and tools help create clear and impactful visual aids.

1. Visual Principles

2. Roles of Visual in Instruction
1) Provide a concrete referent for ideas
- iconic i.e. more easily to be remembered
as compared to words.
This visual image of an apple
is the referent of the word ‘apple’

3. Role of Visuals in Instruction
2. Motivate learners by attracting their
attention, holding their attention and
generating emotional responses.
3. Simplify information that is difficult to
understand.

4. SERIES OF DESIGN DECISION
Visual Design Element Visual Design Pattern Visual Design Arrangement
Visual Element Verbal Element Add Appeals Proximity
Realistic Letter style Surprise Directionals
Alignment
Number of style Texture Figure-ground
Analogic
contrast
Shape
Capitals Interaction
Organization Consistency
Balance
Colour
Style
Size
Colour scheme
Spacing
Colour appeal

5. Visual Literacy
• refer to the learned ability to interpret
visual messages accurately to create
such messages.
2 visual approaches
1. Input Strategy
2. Output Strategy

6. Input Strategy
• helping learners to “decode”
(read), visuals proficiently by
practicing visual analysis
Developmental Effects
Cultural Effects
Visual Preferences

7. Developmental Effect
 (Dwyer, 1978) “As a child gets older, he
becomes more capable of attending
selectively to those features of an
instructional presentation that have the
greatest potential for enhancing his
learning of desired information.

8. Different cultural groups may perceive
visual materials in different ways.
• Usually thumbs up gesture
means positive or okay.
• But for Balinese the thumbs
up is part of a ritual way of
showing respect to someone
of a higher caste.

9. Visual Preferences
• Teacher should select between
preferred visual and most effective
visual.

10. Visual Literacy: Output Strategies
1) Learners create their own visual
presentation
- using camera / camcorder etc.
- sequencing – ability to arrange idea in
logical order

11. Goals of Visual Design
• Ensure legibility
• Reduce the effort required to interpret the
message
• Increase the viewer‟s active engagement
with the message
• Focus attention on the most important part
of the message

12. Process of Visual Design
1) Elements – selecting the verbal/visual
elements to be incorporated into display
2) Pattern – choosing an underlying pattern
for the elements of the display
3) Arrangement – arranging the individual
element within the underlying pattern

13. Elements : Visual Elements
1) Realistic
• Show the actual object under study
ABSTRACT REALISTIC

14. Elements : Visual Elements
2) Analogic visuals
Convey topic by showing something else and
implying a similarity
E.g. the function of human memory with the
function of computer memory

15. Elements : Visual Elements
3) Organizational visuals
• Such as flowcharts, graphs, maps,
classification charts

16. Elements : Verbal Elements
1) Letter style
• It should be consistent and harmonize with
the other visual elements
• Straightforward and plain style

17. Elements : Verbal Elements
2) Number of lettering styles
• Not more than 2 different type styles
• Limit variations (bold, italic, underline, size
changes) to four

18. Elements : Verbal Elements
3) Capitals
• Use lowercase letters
• Adding capitals when it is necessary
• Headlines can be in capitals but not more
than 3 words

19. Elements : Verbal Elements
4) Colour of lettering
• The lettering colour should contrast with
the background colour
• Think about your audience..

20. Elements : Verbal Elements
5) Size of lettering
• Rule of thumb: make lower case letters ½
inch high for each 10 feet of viewer
distance

21. Elements : Verbal Elements
6) Spacing between letters
• Consider „optical spacing‟
• Estimating approximately equal amounts
of with space between letters
LABWORK

22. Elements : Verbal Elements
7) Spacing between lines
• Letters should be not too cramped or too
widely separate
• Text is most legible when separation is
11/2 times average letter height

23. Elements :
Elements that add appeals
• Surprise
• Interaction

24. Process of Visual Design : Pattern
Alignment Shape Balance
Style Color Scheme Color Appeal

25. Process of Visual Design : Pattern
1) Alignment
• Balance alignment
• Same imaginary horizontal and vertical
line
• Viewer expend little effort making sense
out of what they are seeing

26. Process of Visual Design : Pattern
2) Shape
• Put and arrange visual into shape that
familiar to learner
• Simple geometric figure – circle, rectangle
• Consider of the „Rule Of Thirds‟

27. Rule of Thirds
• Place your important elements where these lines
intersect
• Good places to put things; third of the way up, third of
the way in from the left
• Duff places to put things; right in the middle, right at the
top, right at the bottom, away in the corner

30. Process of Visual Design : Pattern
3) Balance
• The „weight‟ of the elements in a display is
equally distributed either horizontally or
vertically

31. Process of Visual Design : Pattern
4) Style
• Simple, uncluttered
• Primary colour for children
• Realistic colour for adult

32. Process of Visual Design : Pattern
5) Colour scheme
• Consider the harmoniousness of the
colour – color wheel
6) Colour appeal
• Consider „warm‟ and „cool‟ colour
• Warm colour – active learner, children
• Cool colour – thoughtful learner, adult
• Consider cultural basis

33. The Colour Wheel
Complimentary colours: any two colours
that lie directly opposite each other
Analogous colours: colours that lie
next to each other
Complimentary and
Analogous colours may form
pleasing combinations when
used together in a display

34. • Use cool colour for
background
• Highlight important cues
in warm colour such as red
and orange

35. Arrangement
• Proximity
• Directional
• Figure-Ground Contrast
• Consistency

36. Visual Planning Tools
Storyboarding Types of Letters Drawing, Sketching and Cartooning
Digital Images
Photo CDs
(CCD)
Digital Cameras Flatbed Scanner