Educate, Don't Decorate: Using Relevant Visuals

Online Events Archive

Online Forums 2012 - August 24, 2012

Noelle Archambeau

Learning Consultant
SAP Marketing

Most training sessions and eLearning courses consist of slides filled with bullets and some decorative photos or clip art. We’ve come to expect this as the norm, probably because PowerPoint has conditioned us this way with its easy-to-use templates. Simply click to add title, click to add bullets, click to add clip art, and we’re done. Robert Mayer’s research (Multimedia Learning, 2001) showed that decorative graphics are distracting and can actually hurt the learning process, but we continue to use them anyway. Why? Because we’re not sure how to change and because that’s what everyone else is doing, so it must be OK.

Participants in this session will examine how to replace bullets and decorative graphics with relevant and impactful visuals that educate learners, and explore some principles for overall slide design. Learn how to make your courses look more professional, be more visually appealing, and be more effective in helping learners learn. Learn how to educate, not decorate.

In this session, you will learn:

How to add visuals that educate and remove visuals that decorate
How to select appropriate fonts and colors
Where to locate free and low-cost photos
How to create handouts to accompany your training

Handout(s)

Handouts are available for Learning Guild members. Please log in or join to download these files.

Recording

This recording is available for Learning Guild members. Please log in or join to download this file.