Make Helpful Images Not Just Beautiful Ones

How do you balance aesthetics and helpfulness when creating videos? Diane Elkins, the Co-owner of Artisan E-Learning and E-Learning Uncovered, joins this episode of The Visual Lounge to discuss.Diane is a national e-learning expert. She’s in the business of helping people create courses they can be proud of —and visual aids happen to play a big part. It’s not simply about creating visuals that look great.They also have to be purposeful, offer value, and complement the rest of your content.For the yes’s, maybes, and absolutely-nots of creating visual content that gets the message across, tune in to this episode of The Visual Lounge.Learning points from the episode include:00:00 - 02:16 Intro02:17 - 02:58 Diane tells us about herself 02:59 - 04:25  How Diane pivoted from graphic design to training and learning04:26 - 07:51 The role of visuals in producing good learning material07:52 - 09:55 Best practices in creating good visuals09:56 - 13:33 How to pull back with design elements13:34 - 15:48 The difference between a classroom trainer and an e-learning module15:49 - 18:56 How much information should accompany visuals18:57 - 25:42 Different levels to consider when creating visuals25:43 - 27:33 How visuals can do more harm than good27:34 - 29:36 A litmus test to check if your content helpful29:37 - 32:03 Tips to get from analogies to solid visual concepts32:04 - 32:50 Why the audience is more important than the content32:51 - 33:29 Overlaps between training and marketing33:30 - 41:02 Decorating vs illustrating your content41:03 - 48:49 Diane gives practical tips on how to make visual content more helpful48:50 - 52:35 Speed round questions52:36 - 54:54 Diana and Matt chat about editing audio54:55 - 55:47 How to connect with Diane55:48 - 56:46 OutroImportant links and mentions:E-Learning Uncovered: https://elearninguncovered.com/Artisan E-Learning: https://artisanelearning.com/Diane’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dpelkins/When Graphics Lower Learning by Patti Shank: https://elearningindustry.com/when-graphics-lower-learningLearn more about the TechSmith Academy.To read the blog post on the topic or watch the video, go to: https://www.techsmith.com/blog/make-helpful-images