CHAPTER
REPORT 5
Visual Principles
The Roles of Visuals in Instruction
Attempts
to make broad generalizations about the role of visuals in learning invariably
fail to yield simple answers. One role that visuals definitely play is to
provide a concrete referent for ideas. Words don’t look or sound (usually) like
the thing they stand for, but visuals are iconic that is, they have some
resemblance to the thing they represent. And visuals can simplify information
that is difficult to understand.
Visual Literacy
Today
we use the term visual literacy to refer to the learned ability to interpret
visual messages accurately and to create such messages. Visual literacy can be
develop through two major approaches:
- Input strategies. Helping learners to
decode, or “read,” visuals proficiently by practicing visual analysing skills.
- Output startegies. Helping learners to
encode, or “write,” visuals to express themselves and communicate with others.
A.
Decoding: Interpreting Visuals
Learners must be guided
toward correct decoding of visuals. One aspect of visual literacy, then, is the
skill of interpreting and creating meaning from surrounding stimuli.
1. Developmental Effects. Prior to the age of
12, children tend to interpret visuals section by section rather than as a
whole. Students who are older however, tend to summirize the whole scene and
report a conclusion about the meaning of the picture.
2. Cultural Effects.In teaching, we must keep
in mind that the act of decoding visuals may be affected by the viewer’s
cultural background. Different cultural groups may perceive visual materials in
different ways.
3. Visual Preferences. In selecting visuals,
teachers have to make appropriate choises between the sorts of visuals that are
preferred and those that are most effective.
B.
Encoding: Creating Visuals
Another route to visual literacy is
through students creation of visual presentations. Just as writing can spur reading,
producing media can be a highly effective way of understanding media.
Goals of Visual Design
For
purposes of information and instruction, good visual design tries to achieve at
least four basic goals in terms of improving communication:
A. Ensure Legability. The goal of good visual
design is to remove as many obstacles as possible that might impede
transmission of your message.
B. Reduce Effort. As a designer you want to
convery your message in such a way that viewers expend little effort making sense
out of waht they are seeing and are free to use most of their mental effort for
understanding the message itself.
C. Increase Active Engagement. The major goal
is to make your design as appealing as possible to get viewers attention and to
entice them into thinking about your message.
D. Focus
Attention. The overall design pattern plus spesific directional guides are your
means for achieving the goal of focusing attention.
Precesses of Visual Design
Teachers,
designers, and others who create visual and verbal/visual displays face a series
of design decisions about how to arrange the elements to achieve their goals.
1. Elements. Selecting and aseembling the
verbal/visual elements to incorporate into the display.
- Visual elements. Realistic visuals show
the actual object to under study. Analogic visual convey a concept or topic by
showing something else and implying a similarity. Organizational visuals
include: flowcharts, graphs, maps, schematics, and classification charts.
- Verbal elements. Most displays incorporate
some type of verbal information in addiction to visuals.
Ø
Letter style
Ø
Number of lettering styles
Ø
Capitals
Ø
Color of lettering
Ø
Size of lettering
Ø
Spacing between letters
Ø
Spacing between lines
- Elements that add appeal.Your visual have
no chance of having an effects unless it captures and holds the viewer’s
attention.
Ø
Suprise
Ø
Texture
Ø
Interaction
2. Pattern
Having made tentative
decisions about what elements to include in your visual display, you are ready
to consider it overall “look.”
- Allignment
The most effective way to
establish such visual relationships is to use alligment. Viewers will perceive
element to be aligned when the edges of horizontal or vertical line.
- Shape
Another way to arrange
the visual and verbal elements is to put them into a shape that is already familiar
to the viewer.
- Balance
In general, try to avoid
imbalance using a distinctly disproportionate weight distribution because it
tends to be jarring.
- Style
Different audiences and
differents setting call for different design styles. Your choise of lettering
and type of pictures should be consistent with each other and with the preferences
of the audience.
- Color Scheme
When choosing a color scheme
for a display, consider the hormoniousness of the colors.
- Color Appeal
Artists have long
appreciated that blue, green, and violet are considered “cool” colors, whereas red
and orange are considered “warm” colors.
3.
Arrangement
- Proximity. Once you have established the
overall shape of your display, you will want to arrange the items within the pattern.
If a display includes verbal labels for the picture elements, connect the related
words and pictures clearly.
- Directionals. Viewers scan a dipslay, with
their attention moving from one part to another. If you want viewers to “read”
the display ina particular sequence or focus on some particular element, you
can use various other devices, called directionals, to dirrect attention.
- Figure-Ground Contrast. The simple rule of
figure-ground contrast is that dark figures show up best on light ground and
light figures show up best on dark grounds.
- Consistency. The more often the
arrangement conforms to these rules (or exhibits consistency) the more viewers
trust the rules.
Visual Planning Tools
These
skills grow with practice, and with practice you will find yourself thinking
visually more often as you grapple with instructional problems.
A.
Storyboard
If you are designing a
series of visuals such as for several related overhead transparencies, a slide
set, a video sequence, or a series of computer screens storyboarding is a handy
method of planning.
B.
Types of Letters
A variety of lettering
techniques for visual exists. The simplest is freehand lettering with makers
and felt-tip pens, which some in array of colors and sizes. You also may cut
letters from construction paper or other materials, because the letter are easy
to use. And the letters are “printed” on strips of clear plastic or colored
films.
C.
Drawing, Sketching, and Cartooning
With a little practice, you may be
surprised by how well you can draw. Simple drawings can enchance chalkboard
presentations, class handouts, bulleting boards, and overhead transparencies.
Digital Images
As
computer technologies advance, creating visual images has moved into the
digital world. Students may use digital cameras to create originals or may
transfer images into digital formats using scanners. Digital images are another
example of nonlinear media.
A.
Digital Camera
Digital camera re small
and lightweight with fewer moving parts than
traditional cameras.
B.
Scanners
Scanners work with
computers to tranfers existing visual images, such as drawings, or photographs,
into digitized computer graphic files.
C.
Photo CDs
An alternative for
digital images that is less expensive and that use equpment that be in schools
in the photo CD.
D.
Caution When Editing Images
It is important to recognize the need
for caution when digitally editing or changing images, as there arises the
possibility of misrepresentation.
