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Mayer and Clark

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Multimedia Design Principles

1. Multimedia principle

2. Contiguity principle

3. Modality principle

4. Redundancy principle

5. Coherence principle

6. Personalization principle

7. Segmenting & Pretraining

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Question 1

Should we pay a graphic designer to create customized graphics for our e-lesson?

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Question 1

• Learning is just as effective from good textual explanation as from text plus graphics. The format of information does not make a difference.

• Adding some cute clip arts to a few screens will make the lesson more interesting and more effective.

• Customized (made for a specific concept) visuals & animations adds appeal and improves learning

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1- Multimedia principle

Use words and graphics rather than words alone

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Why?

• learners learn better when they engage in relevant cognitive pressing such as attending to the relevant material in the lesson, mentally organizing the material into a coherent cognitive representation and mentally integrating the material with their existing knowledge.

• The computer screen is our main connection with students, screens filled with text will turn them off right away.

• Keep a balance6

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Question 2

• Where to put text directions ?

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Question 2

• The text directions should be placed on a preceding screen rather than on top of the picture.

• The text directions should be placed on the same screen as the visual

• Both ideas could be accommodated by placing text directions in a rollover box activated by the mouse.

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2- Contiguity principle

• Place corresponding words and graphics near each other

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Why?

• When words and pictures are separated from one another , people must use their scarce cognitive resources just to match them up.

• When words and pictures are integrated, people can hold them together in their working memory and therefore, make meaningful connection between them.

• Even for environments with high traffic and low bandwidth, they recommend against separation.

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Question 3

• Do we need audio while we can have faster and cheaper text versions?

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Both?

• Providing text allows learner to move at their own pace rather than have to wait for audio to play

• Learning is much better when words are presented in audio narration rather than text

• Everyone can be accommodated by providing words in both text and audio.

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3- Modality principle

• Present audio narration rather than onscreen text when you want to explain pictures.

• Particularly, if the picture requires a lot of explanation.

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Why?

• There are two main channels that we use to process information, the auditory and visual channel.

• When learners are given concurrent graphics and on screen text, both must be initially processed in the visual channel.

• This overloads one channel while the other channel is not used

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Question 4

Should we add text to explain narrated graphics?

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4- Redundancy principle

Don’t add on screen text to narrated graphics to explain visuals.

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Why?

• Learner might pay so much attention to the printed words that they pay less attention to the graphics.

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How about learning styles?

• The learning styles view seems to make sense (putting both spoken text and on-screen text for different learning styles)

• However, adding redundant on-screen text could overload the visual channel.

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Accessibility

• How about accessibility? Well the default should be audio only but they can choose audio off and text on if they want.

• Communicate words in both on-screen text and audio narration to accommodate different learning styles and to meet 508 compliance

• Explain visuals with audio alone to promote best learning • Let the learner select either audio or text as part of the course

introduction.

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Question 5

Should we add excitement to our e-lesson?

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Question 5

• Adding some emotion grabbing elements to narration helps.

• Adding some music to narration helps.

• Add some games?

• Less is more for most learners.

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5- Coherence principle

• Adding extra material can hurt learning

• Avoid e-lessons with extraneous Audio

• Avoid e-lessons with extraneous Graphics

• Avoid e-lessons with extraneous Words

• Recommend against extraneous words added for interest, elaboration, or for technical depth.

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Why?

• There is a distinction between emotional interest and cognitive interest

• There is little evidence that emotion-grabbing adjuncts (seductive details) promote deep learning

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Question 6

• Formal or Informal talk?

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Formal more serious?

• A more informal approach plus an agent will lead to better learning.

• A more formal tone will fit the instructor image better, leading to a more credible course

• The tone of voice depends on the learner (male, female, alteranate)

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6- Personalization principle

• Use conversational style and virtual coaches

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Why?

People work harder to understand material when they feel they are in a conversation with a partner, rather than simply receiving information.

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Dilemma 7

• Sequencing? Branching?

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Question 7

• Combine the practical steps and the key concepts together?

Or

• Separate the key concepts from the procedure?

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Which one?

• First Learn Zebrazapps tools and functions then try to make a project

• Combine the process and key concepts.

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Learner Control or Program Control ?

• Let the lesson play (automatically) like a video

• Let the user control the sequence

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Principle 7Segmenting & Pretraining

1. Break a continuous lesson into Bite-Size Segments.

2. Mix key concepts and procedures

3. Default should be sequencing but give the learner to skip if they are familiar with the topic.

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Why?

• Sequencing allows the learner to engage essential processing without overloading the learner’s cognitive system.

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