Ranting & Raving on Instructional Design, Education & Technical Training

I don’t think this is much taught in Instructional Design courses, but the design of a presentation conveys information in and of itself to the audience. This is due in large part to the fact that all the elements of a course or presentation (including the presenter) constitute a Gestalt that is projected to the audience.

Good design matters because good design leads to clarity. And clarity facilitates perception.

The design elements often constitute the ground in the figure-ground relationship of the medium, but the whole package conveys a message. The medium is the message.

As an example of how design sends nonverbal cues to the viewer, take a look at the short talk by John McWade of Before & After Magazine. Although taken completely from the design world the example captures the effects of font, color and shape passed as a subliminal message to the unsuspecting eye.

It is not hard to cite these effects in educational media and presentations. How often does a slide, presentation or workshop exercise say “boring” or “we don’t care” or “this is not important” or “this is hard to understand” to an audience? Media evoke reactions from the viewer and the reactions are often affective in nature. Connie Malamed at the eLearning Coach puts it this way:

“This has strong implications for learning, because of the impact positive or negative feelings have on motivation, comprehension and retention.”

We design educational media for a reason. Well designed media lower the barriers to comprehension and assist the mastery of new skills. Things that detract from these goals include boring and inept graphics, awkward symmetry and poor layouts, illegible typefaces, abrasive or boring color schemes, and too much information.

For more information on good design see:

Before & After Magazine

“How Visual Clarity Affects Learning,” The eLearning Coach

Visual Language for Designers

Garr Reynolds is in the throes of a new book titled “presentation zen DESIGN” due out at the end of the year. It follows on a previous title “presentation zen” and drills down deeper into material specifically related to visual communication. From his blog post:

“For many of us, there is a hole in our education when it comes to communicating visually, and knowledge of even the basics of graphic design is missing for most people. This book intends to do its small part to help fix this problem by focusing on concrete graphic design principles and techniques in the context of presentation design, though the concepts and knowledge can be applied to other areas of one’s professional life. This book is a deeper exploration of the Design section of PZ (chapters 5-7). The underlying guiding principles are the same — restraint, simplicity, and naturalness — but this time applied strictly to visual communication in general and graphic design in particular. My aim is to help the non-designer become a bit more savvy of a visual thinker and to give him or her the tools and understanding to apply this knowledge in concrete, practical ways immediately in presentations (and beyond).”

Reynold’s work should be required reading for anyone who teaches or gives talks with PowerPoint and the like. His emphasis on clarity, simplicity and naturalness is a balm to the tired soul deluged by dreary stacks of slides that drone on in endless succession.

The author also requests suggestions, stories and examples from his readers. Please write to Garr Reynolds at this address with suggestions for “presentation zen DESIGN.”