How Visual Aids Make or Break Learning: Design, Simplicity, and Accessibility (Revisited)

Need to create an e-learning presentation but don’t have an eye for good visuals? This episode is for you! We revisit a great past episode with Diane Elkins, instructional design pro and owner of Artisan Learning. There’s so much solid advice in this episode on what works, what to avoid, and how visuals impact the learning experience (probably more than you think).Diane explains how bad visuals inhibit learning, why simpler is often better, and why “slides” are due a name change. Plus, she gets on her soapbox to explain the real goal of e-learning. We also look at some examples of pretty, plain, and hideous slides to compare, based on a real experiment Diane used to test out visual design. One thing to note: We do share some visuals in this episode of good and bad design choices, so for the full experience, we recommend checking out the episode on YouTube.Learning points from the episode include:00:00 – 02:44 Introduction to Diane and her work02:44 – 04:57 The role in visuals in e-learning04:57 - 07:33 Best practices for visuals and what to avoid07:33 – 11:11 Mindset shifts to avoid over-the-top visuals11:11 – 13:20 Why visuals are even more important in e-learning scenarios13:20 – 16:25 How to decide what information to put on a slide16:25 – 21:53 Diane’s pretty, plain, and hideous visual design experiment21:53 – 25:00 Why simple is often better for learning25:00 – 29:34 Why “is it helpful?” is the most important question to ask29:34 – 31:31 Why visual aids should always be in service of the audience31:31 – 38:42 An example of whether we should decorate or illustrate with visuals38:42 – 46:18 Can we fix it? Diane’s advice to bad design examples46:18 – 49:49 Speed round questions49:49 – 51:40 OutroImportant links and mentions:Visit e-Learning Uncovered: www.elearninguncovered.comVisit Artisan Learning: www.artisanelearning.comConnect with Diane on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dpelkins/