Episode 257

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 work
  • 02:44 – 04:57 The role in visuals in e-learning
  • 04:57 - 07:33 Best practices for visuals and what to avoid
  • 07:33 – 11:11 Mindset shifts to avoid over-the-top visuals
  • 11:11 – 13:20 Why visuals are even more important in e-learning scenarios
  • 13:20 – 16:25 How to decide what information to put on a slide
  • 16:25 – 21:53 Diane’s pretty, plain, and hideous visual design experiment
  • 21:53 – 25:00 Why simple is often better for learning
  • 25:00 – 29:34 Why “is it helpful?” is the most important question to ask
  • 29:34 – 31:31 Why visual aids should always be in service of the audience
  • 31:31 – 38:42 An example of whether we should decorate or illustrate with visuals
  • 38:42 – 46:18 Can we fix it? Diane’s advice to bad design examples
  • 46:18 – 49:49 Speed round questions
  • 49:49 – 51:40 Outro

Important links and mentions:

Transcript
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I think one of the things that's important is to not try to give your

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visual aids too many purposes. Classroom training.

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You're making your PowerPoint and they want the

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PowerPoint to also be the instructor notes. I don't mean the

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notes pane, I mean the slide. And so

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they're making their visual aids be their instructor notes. And hello,

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where's the worst place to put instructor notes? Behind

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me? I mean, really

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is that that's where I should put my notes so that the students can

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see my notes? No, I mean, there's presenter view. Get

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out an index card. Nobody will mind if you put your notes on an index

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card or you have a piece of paper in your hand so your slides are

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not for you. Good morning, good evening, good

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afternoon, wherever you are and wherever you're watching from. My name is Matt Pearce, host

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of Visual Lounge. I'm getting ready to go on vacation. I've got this episode.

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I wanted to go through it again because it's such a great episode with Diane

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Elkins. So I think you're going to really like what you hear, if you're interested

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at all in visual design, not only from a, like a how do I make

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my instructional design look better, but why should I do that?

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And you're also interested in accessibility. Diane is someone that you need to

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listen to. She is just fantastic. So I'd encourage you. It's a longer

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episode, but go through it because there's so much great information here about

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using visuals. Now, if you are listening to podcasts, there are a couple sections,

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just as a heads up, that are better as visuals.

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And we got some great examples. And one of them, oh my gosh, it is.

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It's actually looking at a hideous example and getting Diane's advice on how you

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would make it better. And so I recommend, if you get a chance, go check

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out those. You could scrub to them till you can find them. They'll be easy

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to see. You will not miss it, trust me. But if we also try our

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best to describe them so you won't miss too, too much. So with that said,

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let's dive into our episode with Diane Elkins. Our guest today

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is Diane Elkins, who is a co owner of Artisan Elearning, a custom

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elearning development company, and Elearning Uncovered, where she helps

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people build courses they're proud of. She has built a reputation as

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a national elearning expert by being a frequent speaker.

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If I could talk, I would be. I would be an expert too, but I

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can't by being a Frequent speaker at major industry events for atd,

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the Learning Guild and Training Magazine. Her favorite topics include

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accessibility, instructional design and articulate storyline. She

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is co author of the popular Elearning Uncovered book series as well as

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Elearning A Practical Guide from ATD Press. She's

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a past board member of the Northeast Florida and Metro DC chapters

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of atd. And with that said, please welcome

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Diane Elkins to the Visual Lounge. Hi there.

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Hey. Thank you so much for being with me today. You bet. We're going to

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start kind of broad here. I'm curious. There's a lot of opinions

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about good E learning, bad E learning. What role

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do you think visuals have in kind of tipping

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the balance? Because I don't think it's going to be like, it's not the only

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thing that makes E learning good. Right. But what role do you think it has

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in tipping the balance towards good elearning versus stuff that's maybe less

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successful or less helpful? Yeah. Well, one thing that I think is really

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important to know is that good visuals can't fix bad training.

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You know, if. If we don't have information

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that's helpful, it doesn't matter what the images are. I don't care how pretty it

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is. So pretty can't be. The. The

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driving force is going back to that word helpful. It's one of my

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favorite words. At Artisan, one of our core values is to be knowledgeable and

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helpful. Our job is to go out there into the world

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and put information in people's hands so that they know how to do their jobs

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better. And everything we do has to drive that.

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Now, at the same time, if it looks terrible,

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that can, first of all, inhibit learning. If I can't read your

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font, we have the ability through font and color choices to induce a

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migraine. Right. You know, electric blue and

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lemon yellow. Don't know. I mean, we have the opportunity

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to actually inhibit learning. Some of the research

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I like, Ruth Colvin Clark's research on such that in

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many cases, you can learn just as well with a simple diagram

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as a complex diagram. In fact, in some cases, people can learn better

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from a simpler diagram. But learning

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is only one aspect of it. You want people to take it.

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You want people to believe you. You want people to

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assign you enough credibility that they want to go adopt the things

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you're trying to get them to adopt. You want them to maybe

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say nice things about it to their coworkers. And visual design

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does have a lot to do with that. Because if your message is

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in an unprofessional looking package, people

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will doubt your message. Well, there goes. I'm just starting to check off

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all the questions is going to ask you about. Right. Like, okay, there we go.

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Let's talk about that though for a second because I think there is a, there

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is a sense of like, what's the role of aesthetics? And like you said, like

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bad aesthetics can create migraines, you can create problems. It can make it so

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people don't learn. I know there's a study and this is completely different space,

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but it's about audio quality that people who listen,

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like, if you have an expert and their audio quality is bad, they'll actually be

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perceived as less intelligent. I

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imagine that same with visuals. Like, if it's bad visual design, it will

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be seen as less relevant, important. So how do we, how do

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we know that we're getting to the right level? Right. And I know

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we've got some stuff we'll talk about different kind of levels and approach. But like

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just generally, what are there best practices here that we should just be aware

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of? Absolutely. The way I like to look at it is

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three levels. There's a certain level of professionalism you don't want to go below.

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You know, Comic Sans in purple, you know, just,

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just don't. Just don't. Images that are

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grainy and fuzzy and poor quality. One that's a piece of clip

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art next to a photo and they're just, it's just a haphazard look. You can't

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tell where you're supposed to be looking at. That's a level of professionalism you don't

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want to go below. Then we've got what I'll just call

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simple, average, maybe even kind of plain. And

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then there's, oh my gosh, that's beautiful. Well, oh my gosh, that's beautiful is

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great. But it's okay if your me. If your

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design is simple. I talk about

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the 3 font rule and the 3 color rule. Unless you are a trained professional,

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you don't need to go with more than three colors. A dark, a light,

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an accent. And you don't ever need more than three

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fonts, a heading, a body text and an accent.

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If you have more than that, you're trying too hard. Now, some people can pull

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it off. Like I have a friend, he can pull off a plaid blazer

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and a paisley tie like no one can. Most people will get

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that wrong. So for most people, it is a good rule to not mix your

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pattern unless you happen to know you can pull it off. Same thing

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with things like Fonts and colors is

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one of the best ways to be professional is to have fewer

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design elements, which might seem counterintuitive. People

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might say, oh, I went to PowerPoint class. I've learned how to do this and

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this and this, and I'm gonna put it all in one course. Well,

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that's actually gonna hurt your message. So simplicity is actually

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better. Pick a few key colors that you use over and over. A few key.

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The key fonts over and over. So in terms of just your.

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Your immediate global design choices,

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keep it simple. So let me ask you, because I

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see that a lot with especially beginner designers,

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instructional designers, but outside of that too, right? We. It's easy to make that mistake

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of too much. How do we. How do you help pull someone back

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from that? What. What would you say to someone if I'm making that vital

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mistake? Because it feels good to use lots of

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stuff. I know, right? So. So how do you help talk somebody but off the

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ledge before they. They make that, you know, leap into the. Oh, my

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gosh, it's too much. I think if your driving

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force is how cool it is, you're off the mark

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right there. If it's, oh, my gosh, I want to learn this. Use this new

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thing that is the cart before the horse. I can use lots of analogies here.

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Right? Is ultimately, I think what we

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can do is change the prompts in our own head. So if I'm sitting there

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looking at something and saying, what should my

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slide say? I am

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seeding my brain to come up with text as my answer.

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What should my slides say? I am predisposing my

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answer to be text. What should my bullets be? Again, I'm

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predisposing it. What piece of clip art or what image

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should I put off to the side? You're predisposing

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yourself for a certain thing instead.

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Maybe even stop using the word slide and

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go back to a word back from, like the 90s when, you know, before we

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even had PowerPoint in the classroom back in the dark ages, we talked about

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visual aids, not slides. I want to

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see that term come back. If I ask myself, what's

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the best visual aid

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for this? So I look at my content and saying,

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based on what I'm trying to accomplish, what

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visual will best help me get there?

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Not how can I make this look cooler? How can I make this

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hip? Hey, can I use that new thing I learned in class?

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Those are prompts that will send you down the wrong path. But if you ask

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yourself, what am I trying to accomplish? Is it to explain a

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point, evoke an emotion, build credibility.

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What are you trying to accomplish and what visual will

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best help you get there. That'll help make sure

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you're staying on track, you're focusing on what's most important. And oh, by the

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way, it's likely to be helpful. I love it. I love it.

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And we are. Okay, we're doing this. We're bringing back visual aid as a

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term. So let's. Right here, hashtag visual aid.

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We're going to spread it across social media. I love it because I think it's

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so easy to get caught up in those things because there's, you know, there's so

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much you can do and there's so much like you want the aesthetic. Like, I

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think there's the trap. I fall. I know I fall into this is I want

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the aesthetics because I want it to be believable. I want it to be trusted.

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I want it to feel good. And sometimes it's hard

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to like it's a conceptual concept. And so I'm like,

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I don't have anything visually, like, that's super valuable

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here. So I'm gonna make it. I'm gonna make something that's pretty.

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I think I do an okay job with the pretty, you know, and I'm pretty

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good overall balancing. But it feels like I fall into the trap because

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short of the other things that I could be doing, it's really sometimes hard to

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be simple. And so I love the advice that I know. There

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was a comment in the chat about the three colors, three font

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rule. I'm guessing that most of us still probably

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pair. Even in three, three fonts is hard. That's a lot of fonts to me.

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I'm going to get it wrong. I just know I'm going to get it wrong.

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I want to take that. What you've said, though, and I want to talk about

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something we talked about prior to the show. You talked about the difference

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between a classroom trainer and an E learning module,

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where even with a subpar or

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poor kind of visual aids, a

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classroom trainer can make it work versus, like an online standalone

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module. And I'm guessing that goes for lots of things that could be an

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elearning course, it could be a video, it could be, you know, however you present

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it, but those won't work. Whereas the, you know,

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I'm a pretty good. Pretty good in front of the camera, pretty good in front

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of the classroom. I could probably make it work regardless. Tell us. Tell us why

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that is. Yeah. So a good instructor can carry a bad

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PowerPoint. If you are, imagine you're sitting in a

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classroom. Remember those days when we all like gathered in rooms together?

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Yeah. Remember that. So you're sitting in a classroom. Most of the

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time you are looking at the instructor. The instructor is your primary

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visual. Yeah. You're going to glance over the slides and yeah, if they're awful, you're

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going to cringe. But it's such a small percentage of the overall

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visual information you're taking in. Most of the time you're looking at the instructor.

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Once you're online, that changes. Now if it's,

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you know, alive, if it's instructor led. Yeah, you still perhaps got that

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person on camera. But the slides are going to be much bigger, self paced E

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learning, freestanding video. The visuals, your

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slides, your Visual aids are 100% of your message. So

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a mediocre slide that barely cut it in the classroom

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is going to be ten times worse online. So

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you've got to up your visual game if you don't have the instructor.

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And then we also need to think about how often that visual changes.

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An Instructor can spend 10 minutes on one slide in the classroom and

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it's perfectly normal. 10 minutes in self paced E learning

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is an eternity. That is probably the,

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that's the module, right? Like 10 minutes. Yeah. So

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we've, if we're. Especially if you're converting from a

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person being the primary visual to converting it to something that's

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more self paced, you've got to up your visual game.

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Okay. So we know we've got to up our game. Is, is there a

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rule generally because like I think about the visual, we talk about visual aids, right.

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It's aiding the content. It's easy for us to talk about

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slides because you know, a lot of people do PowerPoint, whether it's an elearning

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page or module or whatever, it doesn't really matter here how much information

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should be on that in that box with that

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visual. Like is there balance that happens there? Because I

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find, and I'm probably maybe more skewed one way.

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I have very little information. Like it's

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one thing, like one idea and might even be part of an idea. Right.

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Because I'm trying to just reduce how much is there. Other people do the kind

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of cardinal thing where they're like I'm gonna put five bullet points, lots of data.

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What's right here when we're putting kind of incorporating that, the visual

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aid with this. Right. I'm not a fan of rules in that

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regard, which I know for some people rules are Very helpful.

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So you probably heard of the 6x6 rule or the 10 by 10 or the

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8 by 8, whatever, you know, whatever number people pick that you shouldn't have more

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than six bullets with six words each. Well, that's if bullets are even the

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right choice for that slide. Maybe that slide. The best thing is

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a video with zero words. You're trying to evoke an emotion.

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Well, your words aren't going to do that. It is critically important that you

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know that will cause nobody to care. So

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a lot of it is again about your, your goal, your message. But

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I think one of the things that's important is to not try to give your

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visual aids too many purposes. I think

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one of the struggles that people have, especially I see this more with

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classroom training than with self paced elearning. But with classroom training, you're making your

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PowerPoint and they want the PowerPoint to

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also be the instructor notes. I don't mean the notes pane, I

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mean the slide. And so they're making their

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visual aids be their instructor notes. And hello,

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where's the worst place to put instructor notes? Behind

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me. I mean, really,

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that's where I should put my notes so that the students can see my

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notes? No, I mean there's presenter view, get out

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an index card. Nobody will mind if you put your notes on an index card

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or you have a piece of paper in your hand. So your slides are not

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for you, period. Your slides are not for you. And

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so if you're trying to put enough on there to

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idiot proof yourself so you remember what to say, that's not the goal of your

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visual aid. Or they say, oh, well, we want this to stand alone for people

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who can't make it. If I've done my job, my

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slides make no sense without me. I

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love it. My message, they are not my message. If I want

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to make a document, then I'll make a document.

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Yeah, I love that advice because I'm pretty sure my slides I've

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turned into many of these conferences, they're not very good without

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the presentation part of it. Yes, because

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they're your visual aid,

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not a book. Absolutely. Well, I know you, you've

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done some work around this kind of, this concept of looking at the kind

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of variety of what works, what doesn't work. The levels you talked about earlier,

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should we, should we dive in to look at those? Would that be good? Yeah,

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let's take a look. So a couple of years ago, you want me to set

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it up? Yeah, please set us up. Okay. So a couple of years Ago,

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I made a short course, it was about a 15 minute little

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course on staying focused on your priorities. And I

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designed it three ways, pretty plain

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and hideous. And for each one, the content

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was exactly the same. The narration was the same,

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the words were the same, and the content of all the images

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was the same. So if there's a picture of a clock on one, it's a

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clock on the other. But what was different is just the graphic

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design. And I put it out in the world randomized

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and so that people would randomly get one or the other. And I

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wanted to see, you know, people like Ruth Colvin Clark's work

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has already indicated that it shouldn't matter for their ability to

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learn, unless, again, you can't read it. But I wanted to

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know, does it impact people's ability,

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willingness to receive and adopt the

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message? So you want to show the slides there?

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Matt and I will share with what my results were.

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Okay, here we got them up here of the pretty. I

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think I have like three or four slides I can show you. So there's

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slide two. There's. It looks good, you

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know. Okay, so that's basically how they all

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worked is for each of the seven points, there was a teaching slide and then

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one of these activity slides. So same thing over and over again. Now let's look

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at the plain version. Kind of the average. Yeah. So

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it's very similar in concept, but I would bet most people

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out there in the business world could say, yeah, I could make that.

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I could. I could pull. I could pull that off. It's not

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fancy. Nobody's gonna win an award from it. Nobody's gonna

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put it up on their refrigerator because they're so proud of it.

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But it's fine. It's perfectly fine. Okay,

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let's. Let's show them the ugly. Are you ready? Cause I don't know. I

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don't know if I'm ready. Oh, yeah.

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Oh, that's painful. Yeah. There's our menu. Somebody

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wanted to use every tool in their toolbox.

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Got some. Lots of color options. Yeah. Oh, isn't it

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gorgeous? Yes. Oh, stock photos. Those are fun graphics.

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Yes. Brush font. Oh, yeah, that's easy to read,

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isn't it? So when I was making this course

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and making the ugly version, I was thinking, Diane, you've gone too far.

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Like, people don't really make it this bad. This is not going to be really

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worthwhile. And then I got a PowerPoint from somebody, some we were

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talking to about doing work. And they said, yeah, we've got some existing training. We'd

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like to refresh it. We'd like to, you know, bump it up a notch. And

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when I opened it, I physically jumped back

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in my chair because of the physical assault that was their course.

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I'm like, nope, I have not gone too far. This does exist, the world.

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So I had about 500 people go through the course, and unfortunately,

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I didn't get enough survey results for it to really be statistically valid. I was

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hoping to make this like, you know, actual big R research.

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But what was really interesting to me is

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that the plane and the pretty

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got very similar results. Pretty got a little

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bit higher. Yeah. So there's again, the plane,

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and it got very similar results to the prettier one.

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And they said that the. What I like best was the comments,

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you know, and so people with both courses said, hey, this was helpful. This gave

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me some useful things to think about. On the plain one, there were also a

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few comments that says, you know, it would have been nice if it was a

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little more visually interesting, but. And then they went on to say a nice thing

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about the course, and they were talking about how this would help them.

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Not one person who took the ugly course

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said anything about how it was helpful. It was the same

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exact course, but not one person

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said, hey, I learned something that will help me. So either they didn't finish

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it. I don't even know if I would have gone past that first slide, quite

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frankly. Yeah, I think that this is a showstopper.

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Yeah. Yeah, right there. So, you know, you could have the best

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content in the world, but if

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it's in this type of package, people won't listen

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to you. And so we've got to make sure

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that our attempt to be cool doesn't

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backfire. And it is better to be plain than to

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try cool and get it wrong. Yeah. And real quick, Diane, what I want

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to do is just. I want to try to describe this visually for anyone who's

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listening to the audio portion of this later. So imagine a slide with

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striped. A striped background. Multiple different types of

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visuals that are images, fonts, or images like

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graphics that are different types and styles and colors, blurry pictures,

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a very cursive font, which is. Wow.

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And so you really have to go check it out on our YouTube channel, the

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Visual Lounge on YouTube, if you want to get the full picture of it, if

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you're listening to this, but you don't need to see it to imagine it's pretty

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bad. Now, one thing I did notice, and it was

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interesting because when you sent these to me, I Looked through them and I was

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like, okay, Yep, that looks really, really good. That's really good. I want to point

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out on this slide, and this was just. My kind of gut reaction is on

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this. Ways to stay focused and prioritize. You've got kind of this arc

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of the icons and the numbers. I actually really

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responded to the average one. I thought, oh, this feels

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much clearer, much easier

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to read. I know I wasn't taking the course, I wasn't trying to go through

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it as a learner, but just kind of my gut was like, I actually like

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this one better because it was just like I could

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follow along easier where it wasn't trying to kind of throw me

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around with too many things. Too many things. Yeah, it was almost overdid it

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on the pretty. Yeah, yeah. And that can happen.

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And you can also clutter up your message so that it's hard to tell

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what's what. And the other thing that is really important is

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to, you know, think about individuals who

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may not have the same. Same physical abilities as you.

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The same ability to perceive color, for example.

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The same ability to just process information.

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And so sometimes the clearer, more straightforward approach is

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easier for people to process.

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Yeah. We had a question come in from. From Garth. One of our

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viewers today said, are we saying that visuals can really do more harm than

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good? Would. Would you say that's the case? They can, they

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can. You know, from a couple of perspectives. One is it can

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be hard to read, it can be distracting,

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it can be irrelevant. There's a lot of things that can go wrong with it.

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Patty Schenck just did a really great article

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on when it is and isn't appropriate to

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use graphics. And I won't remember the official

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three words. So we're just going to have to. But basically using my words,

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I apologize, Patty. You have your helpful graphics, meaning they

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aid in learning. Then you have your basically

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kind of neutral graphic. It might be decorative, but

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it's not causing any harm. But then you can have,

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I think the word is like seductive graphics, where

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it gets you sucked in to something that is

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irrelevant and it actually knocks you out of

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learning. So, yes, the wrong graphic can actually

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inhibit learning. Yeah, Well, I love that. I love

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that concept because I think there is a danger. And, you know,

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TechSmith, we are all about images and visuals, but it's still using the

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right ones for the right place and the right time. But I love that

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breakdown that, you know, because sometimes there's not a visual that fits. And as

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long as it's not, it's Kind of that principle, do no harm, right? Like it's

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not doing harm, but it is very easy to get caught up and be like,

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oh, we're going to do a really nice graphic here. And then you get caught

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on the graphic versus what is the message, what is the thing that we're going

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to say, or what are we trying to convey? Whether it's learning

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or even I would just imagine, just kind of regular communication, right? Like

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you get caught up on it and it's taking people on the wrong thing.

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And that's why I love the question, is it helpful? Because

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yes, it can be cool, but is it helpful? And if it's not

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helpful, then we have to ask ourselves why we're doing it. And

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you talked about, you know, staring at something and struggling

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about what to, what to do. That's helpful.

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And what I tell folks, especially newer writers who come to work with

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us at Artisan, is I'll say if you're looking at your slide, your

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script or narration or whatever, and you're struggling

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what visual to use, question your content first.

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Because theoretical, abstract,

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conceptual information is, is a lot harder

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to illustrate. And so what we end up doing is

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decorating instead of illustrating.

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I would rather illustrate my point with something that makes that point

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clearer, more memorable, more impactful than

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decorating a slide. And

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conceptual information is harder to illustrate because it's so abstract. And so

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that's where we end up with cheesy thumbs up or person pointing

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to the bullet points. I hate that. Or oh, a light

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bulb to indicate it's an idea. Well, you're going to get really

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superficial graphic handshake, you know, people

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gathered around a computer pointing at it. You know, you've seen all of it.

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Is you're going to come up with generic graphics if your content is generic.

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So I'd say look at your content and say, am I being

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helpful with my content? Am I being clear

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about how somebody would use this? In what situation

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am I giving clear examples, analogies, scenarios? That's why I love

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an analogy. It is so easy to do a great

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visuals if you have a great analogy. So if you're

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really struggling, question your content. Yeah,

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I do love that. And I love that you turned it towards thinking about what

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are the analogies, what are the ways that are illustrative outside of pictures, right?

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Like how do you illustrate to take this from a high level thinking to more

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concrete thinking. But that's a real challenge for a lot of us, right? Because

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we do have conceptual things that we have to convey.

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And so I Guess the analogy stuff helps. Any other tips to get from kind

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of that concept down to, you know, maybe more concrete things

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so that you could illustrate and not just decorate?

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Yeah, one thing is that if you have an analogy, tell it first.

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So if I have a conceptual concept that I explain, and then I have a

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great analogy for it to make sense. Well, what's my visual? You know, let's say

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my analogy is about an elephant. Well, I can't start that slide with the elephant

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if I'm starting with the conceptual, because people are gonna be going, why am I

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looking at an elephant? Tell your story first. Have

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it start with a great visual. Then you can explain conceptually what you're

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trying to tie to. So just flipping it sometimes can really be

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useful. And then the other is just good instructional design is to try

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and focus on what people are doing on some

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random Tuesday in November. So this is my

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soapbox. So at a certain point, you may need to cut me off. I love

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it. Okay, so here we go. We are in the job

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of helping people make decisions. So you've got some guy named

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Joe on some random Tuesday in November sitting at his desk or at the assembly

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line or on a. On a sales call or whatever,

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and he has to make a decision. Do I pick up this tool or that

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tool? Do I click this button? Do I click that button? Do I say this?

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Do I say nothing? Our job is to help Joe make a decision

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in that moment. The more we can focus our training on that

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decision, the better our training is going to be.

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And by the way, that moment is easier to illustrate than,

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oh, I want you to list, define, exclude, explain, and

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understand these concepts. So the more we can

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have our training live in the moment of decision, the

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easier it's going to be to illustrate. That's a great

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soapbox. I love it. Well, I think I just did

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this. Conversation with somebody yesterday, so if you see me out there in the world,

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you'll probably hear me say that, because it's like my thing. Well, I

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love thinking about Joe in November on a random Tuesday, doing

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his job, just doing his job. Right. He's. And he's got to. We're

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providing something for him. And, you know, at TechSmith, we've been talking a

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lot kind of broader about communication, not just training, but it's like in any

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communication with visuals. Right. Like, what's going to really make it

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relevant to Joe. And. Yeah. So I want to

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go to a question that was asked in the chat that I think is

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James is asking in choosing visual aids Is it. Is the content

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or the audience more important? I think I know my answer, but I think kind

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of similar thing, right. You just sort of answered it. It's about the

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audience. Everything we do is in service of the learner.

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It is not about us and it is not about the expert.

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Everything we do is in service of that person. Because

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here's the thing, we might have business goals, but only the learner can achieve the

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business goal. Only the learner can change their performance on

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that Tuesday. And so everything needs to be in

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service of what is going to help that person understand,

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retain, remember, and care about your content.

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Yeah. And I would say that goes to so many other areas too. Right. If

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you're a marketer watching this or listening, you're in service of that.

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That audience because you want them to be successful. Whatever they're doing, it's not about

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us or you or it's not even about your tool. It's about getting that

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person to be able to do the job that they've got to get done. So.

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And there's so many overlaps between training and advertising.

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Advertising is also about getting you to make a decision. Now, it usually

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involves your checkbook, but, yeah, they're trying to get

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you to make a decision at a certain point in time. And

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we're doing the same thing. We're trying to get people to make a decision a

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certain way at a certain point in time. Yeah, I want

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to go back real quick because Jane was asking. Jane Davids was asking the three

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words. It was instructive, decorative and seductive.

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Seductive, yes. And again, these are not the official researchy words.

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And Matt, if I get you the link to Patti's article, I assume you can

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put it in the comments or whatever and it can. It can look. Yeah, it

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was a great article. We can put that in the show notes as well and

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make sure everyone gets that because. Yeah, I'd love to see that for myself, but

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I, you know, Patty. Patty Shank, if you don't know Patty Shank, she does some

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amazing research and great stuff. So. Okay. And then

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I have an example of this if you want. Yeah, you want to do the

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Red Cross example? Let's do that. Let me pull that right back up. And. And

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I'm going to scroll down there. Okay.

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Yeah, that's the one. Okay, so this gets back to the concept

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of do we decorate or do we illustrate? And if we can't

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illustrate, let's question our content. So we've done a lot

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of work over the years with the American Red Cross. In their disaster services area.

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And we worked with them on a course about how to fill out a

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form to help them manage their disaster

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relief efforts. So imagine a hurricane comes in. There's shelters everywhere. They're trying

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to manage that operation. And so the

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audience is volunteers who do not have a financial or statistical background

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who need to fill out this complex financial and statistical stuff. And, oh, by the

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way, there's a direct disaster raging around you, you know, so no

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pressure. And this was one of their slides. So what's

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a commitment? Well, it's about how much money we believe we've spent and

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blah, blah, blah, it's. But it's a management tool, not accounting tool. So

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it's critical that reflect it as soon as possible because the dollar figures drive

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financial decisions. Okay, well, first of all,

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you know, not a very interesting slide. This was for a webinar that did not

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have the person on camera. So this is all you were looking at.

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And the guy who put it together was just

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such a great person who was so passionate about how data

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can. The power of data can really help change people's lives.

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But he. He didn't know the right way to get that message out. Fortunately,

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he knew it. My job's harder when my client doesn't know their

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baby is ugly. He knew his baby was ugly, and

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he didn't know what to do about it. So he knew this wasn't right. So

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it's not like I'm picking on somebody behind their back. We were in on this

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together. And so I could just decorate this

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slide. So you want to show the next one? Yeah, I could just

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decorate it. I mean, that's a prettier version, right?

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Yeah, but have I added any

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value? Is this content easier

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to remember, easier to understand, remember,

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apply do in the moment, get you to care about.

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It's not. And so question your content.

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And so if you read over this, what you realize is

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I don't even know what it means. Like, I know what all

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those words mean, but I don't know what it means.

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And if I'm a shelter manager, I don't actually know, like, what are you

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asking me to do? So that's when I have to use my

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interviewing skills, which I think is one of the best skills you can have, whether.

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Whether you're. Whether you're crafting any message. I don't care what kind of message it

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is. And so I talked to the subject matter expert. I'm

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like, tell me what's going on in the real world. So there's a

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hurricane There's a disaster shelter. What's going

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wrong? What are people not getting about this? And they said, and

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he said, okay, so here's the deal is we want people to report how much

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money they're spending, but I want to know the minute they commit

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to spending it. So if they need new cots, the minute they place that

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order, they've committed to spending our money. Like,

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they haven't paid for it yet. The bill hasn't arrived, the cots haven't

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arrived. By the time the cots have arrived and the bill has come and we

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paid it like our shelters are closed, we're done. Like, I can't

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respond if I know three weeks after you've made a

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decision or a purchase, I need to know the minute

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you've committed our funds. That's why they're called commitments.

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And what I realized is, is that this is not a

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slide about money. This is a slide about time.

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They were putting the expenses on the wrong day.

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So coins are not even the right decoration. So if we go to

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the next slide, we could do something as simple. This is a

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very, very simple slide. I'm sure everybody watching this can

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make this slide. For those of you who can't see it, it's a calendar with

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a couple of dates and a couple of red circles. And so if this was

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self paced elearning, I'd say, okay, so let's say you order some cuts on the

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7th, receive them on the 10th, and receive the bill on the 23rd.

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We can't wait till the 23rd to know that that money is being spent.

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The minute you spent it on that, you made the order on the 7th. That's

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the day it goes on your form. It's clearer to understand

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you're going to remember it better. And by the way, this is going to be

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a much shorter slide. The right graphic makes

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your courses shorter in many cases.

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Now, if I want to go farther to an analogy, because, you know, this is

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something that you may not do for six months, let's hope you don't do this

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for six months. Because there's no disasters. You may not remember it.

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Can I do something that's maybe a little bit more memorable? And that's where an

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analogy comes in. So I could say, you know,

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imagine you're going to have dinner with your friends. You have a $20

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bill in your pocket. You place your order, you get burger, fries

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and a shake. It comes to $14. Okay, you're waiting for

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your food. You still have $20 in your pocket. Don't you. You do. And

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everybody says, hey, you want to go to the movies? And you go, Yeah, I

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got $20. We can go to the movies. Well,

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you've already committed to spend $14 of it.

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So if you want to show the next slide,

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when you order, you commit. And it's the

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commitment that we put on the form. So

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that's another case where an analogy makes your graphics so much

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easier to do. But it's not just about prettier.

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It's. You're more likely to remember this now. It's more

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helpful. Yeah, well, wow. I love these

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examples and I love the walkthrough because you're. You know, I was looking at

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these earlier. I'm just going to go back and like you said, this made no

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sense. Money on the page, no sense. It made no sense. It's

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because it's not about money. But really, I was like, what is this even saying?

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Right? But these are very clear. Like, I love both of these because

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this one is like, oh, I can. I could like, quick recall, if I looked

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at it, I knew what it is. But this one, it's going to have a

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different kind of reaction because of the story with it. Right. Like, 20 bucks,

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I spend that amount. I can't go and spend it on something else.

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So, yeah, I love. I love both of those. And if you go back to

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the one with the coins, if we go back to how we craft our

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message first, that's the problem with this slide. It wasn't that the first

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one was ugly, is that our message wasn't clear. Like, even now that you know

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what you know and you read over this text, now

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it hits you in the face obvious, like, oh, I'm not actually telling them what

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to do. Nowhere on this slide doesn't tell them

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overtly. Enter in your financial

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commitments the day you make the order and make the commitment. Like, does. Does it

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say that every. Anywhere? No. If you

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can't figure out how to illustrate and can only think of how to decorate and

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it's something cheesy and superficial, question your

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content. Yeah. Just so you know,

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a couple things here, we got the link to Patty Shanks article. It's been

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put into the chat, so we'll also put that throughout the. The show notes and

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things like that. Diane, pretty soon here, in just a couple minutes, we're

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gonna go to our speed round. But before we do that, I want to. Gonna

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try something to do. Never done this before, so you're my guinea pig. Thank you

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for agreeing to this. We're gonna do something called, let's see,

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can we fix it Now, I have mocked up

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an E Learning page. And you know how you said,

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maybe I should warn people about seizures? And this is

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intentionally hideous based on my Google search. But

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I wanna just. Your gut reaction, which is gonna be,

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first of all, it's gonna be like, I gotta throw up. But just

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immediately, what advice would you give to someone to fix it? And I've intentionally. Again,

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I want to clear the area. I've intentionally made it bad. I would never make

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this myself. Are you ready? I'm ready. Everyone at home

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better hold your seats and get your trash bags ready, because it's hideous.

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Here we go. How. Pointing to

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content. How did you know that was my favorite? You have

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said so many of the things. I'm just like, in my back of my head,

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I was thinking, oh, oh, boy, I'm glad I did that one.

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So someone comes to you and says, diane, we've got

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elearning. We need you to help make us make it better.

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What would. What advice would you give? And obviously, this is more like a Interact.

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Could be an interactive module, but this could be a slide. I could do this

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in PowerPoint. It could be in whatever. Right? So, yep.

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Okay, so a couple of things. I'll go big picture, little picture,

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etc. One is we always want to

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check for color contrast. Color contrast is one of the best ways

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to make our communications more accessible to

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individuals with disabilities. So I can tell you right now that

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that white on orange does not meet the minimum

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required color contrast. I did a short

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video for atd, their Toolbox Tip series on how to

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check for color contrast and what the preferred thresholds are. So I can make sure

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I can get that to you as well, Matt. But that is such an easy,

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easy, quick thing to do to be more inclusive with your content.

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And then we have the word resources up there at the top. I took

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a whole semester of typography in college and liked

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it. And a semester of calligraphy. And I would have gotten an

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F for that because you don't ever want to use all

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caps in what's called an ornamental. So any that's

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a. That's considered a swash italic. So the little swish

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on the R and the E and the S is you. Generally, all caps

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are harder for people to read who have information processing. So the

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whole thing is in all caps. I would reserve all

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caps for a few words here and there, you know, just for

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emphasis. So one of the other things we learn in design school is when you

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Emphasize everything. You've emphasized nothing. So you want to use your

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emphasis sparingly. So I'd be careful about using all

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caps and especially if it's an ornamental. Most

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ornamental fonts. Old English is another one which you probably shouldn't be using in

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E Learning, but they're, you know, certificate of completion or whatever. Never,

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ever, ever in all caps. I think this is a

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great opportunity to use the three color rule.

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Now we have four. If you're going to use three

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again, I would recommend a dark, a light, and an accent. Not three

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in your face colors.

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So, you know, could you use that green and that pink? Well, you might.

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There's a national sorority that has that very similar to that pink and

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green colors. And you know, if this is for them, then you would absolutely use

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it. But if you're too. If you've got several bright

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colors like this, because maybe that's your color palette. Integrate more

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white and black. White and black are always free. So remember I said the three

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color rule. White and black are always free. So maybe that

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pink is more of a stripe directly below the, the,

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the green. Or maybe if we kept pointy lady,

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maybe there's like a, like a fun cutout behind her that's in the

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pink. So the, one of the, one

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of the things I also learned in design school is the more

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you, the more you have of something, the less fun it can be.

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So something that's that big shouldn't be that pink. The same thing is

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true with text. The more text you have,

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the less fun you can have with the font. So if you

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have two words like hot tip. Yeah, pick something a little fun and

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interesting for that hot tip. But if you've got a paragraph,

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first and foremost, unless you are, unless your goal is to create fine art,

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the goal of your text is to be read. And

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so if you do things that keep it from being read and

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using a complicated font on a larger passage,

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it's, it's going to, to eliminate the effectiveness of

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your message. So let's see, we've got 1, 2, 3,

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4, 5 fonts. So I, I did my

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worst. Yes, yes. And you got Comic Sans in there.

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So you know, way to go. And then the

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other thing that I would. This is, you know, more of a subtle thing, is

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through design, you have the ability to

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influence where the learner's eye goes.

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And some of the things that cause your eye goes

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somewhere other than other. One place, other

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versus another. See, now I can't form full, full sentences.

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Some of it is if it's distinct. If everything is big

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and one thing is small, you're gonna look at the small thing first. Everything's small

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when things big, if one thing's brighter, if one thing's more dull, basically

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whatever makes it different. Also, a lot of room about some around something

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makes it more visible. So my eye goes directly to her, which is

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the least important thing on the message. Now, the one good

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thing about her little pointy finger, which I hate, is it does actually draw your

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eye over to where you're supposed to look. But why should I look at her

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first? Right. So I won't say you can control

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where people's eyes go, but you can influence it.

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There's another graphic. I think I'll see if I can find it for you.

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It's. It's awesome. It's a graphic with a bunch of tech. I think it's a

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web layout. And so everything's in the right font

Speaker:

and color and position, but the words say, you'll read this first,

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you'll read this next, you'll read this next, you'll read this last. And by golly,

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it's true just based on where it is and how

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it looks. So what you need to decide is

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where do you want them to look? I took an abstract

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painting course once, and the teacher was

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off looking at somebody's work and says, what's your

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focal point on this painting? And she says, right here. And

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he says, okay, what's going to make me look there?

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Okay. And then where did they go next? So on this slide, I don't. I

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don't know where. Where to go next. Like, it's. It's so disjointed.

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I'm just going to be bouncing around and probably won't end up reading it as

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a result. Yeah, well, we could look at that all day because there's probably

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a million other problems, but I want to. I want to kind of keep things

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moving here, but thank you for that, because I think what that did. I love

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that it brought back some of the things we talked about earlier, some of the

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kind of those rules, kind of see them in action and. And, yeah. That.

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It hurt my soul a little bit to make that. Just. I want everybody to

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know it's pretty bad. There's some funny comments

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in the chat about Pepto Bismol, and, you know,

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pink and green are probably not the right color combination.

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Yeah, Lots of reasons it was bad. However, then we're going to move

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on and go quickly through our Speedrun questions. So here we go. Okay.

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All right. So first Speedrun question we're going to move fast and furious on these

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is you're truly an expert at elearning. There's no doubt about that. You've

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proven your kind of abilities today

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and you get to talk about that at work in your bio. But what's something

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that you're an expert in that we might not know? Flowers.

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Really like arrangements. I grow them. I

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arrange them. I have a whole cabinet in my kitchen of vases.

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I grow about 50 varieties of flowers. I could

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talk your ear off. Oh, that is awesome. That's great.

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And next time I'm with you, I'll have to ask you about flowers because I

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can't. Only if you want me to talk for an hour, so be careful. Yeah.

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Well, that's the next podcast TechSmith is making. We're going to only talk about florals

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and vegetation. So next speed run question,

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what's a piece of advice you'd give everyone looking to design

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learning content that you want them to know that maybe we haven't talked about today?

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It doesn't have to be about visuals. So best advice you can give

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us. Best advice.

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Go check out Cathy Moore's action mapping process.

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It is one of the best ways, in my opinion, to stay really focused on

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that Joe on some random Tuesday in November. Those are my words, not

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hers. But it's just a very elegant process

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for making sure you're focused on what people need to do

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instead of just filling their heads with information that they may or may not

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know what to do with. Perfect. I love it. So Cathy Moore's

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action Action mapping. Action mapping. Action mapping. Okay, go

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check it out. Okay. Question three. There's only two questions left. So question three,

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where do you go for inspiration? Obviously you're in a creative kind of industry

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job. You've got to have lots of ideas. How do you keep keep the

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kind of the creative well filled, if you will. Good.

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Question one is I go to a lot of conferences, so

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that's great. Learning Guild, ATD training magazine has a lot of good

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stuff. So many webinars. I find a lot of

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my inspiration from LinkedIn. So connecting with

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people like Patty Shank, that's how I found out about her article.

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So LinkedIn is where I see people who post things

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that influence them and so that helps. When I was

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newer to elearning, one of the things that really helped

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was getting my hands on as many examples as I could.

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And so doing a search for people's online portfolios,

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companies, you know, like Artisan has an online portfolio Go check it out. Go

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look at some of the examples. The Articulate community has

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their elearning examples page, their Elearning challenges

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page. The Learning Guild has an event called Demo

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Fest. You can go in person. That's great. If not, the winners of that event

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have a free webinar so you can see it. So get out there and just

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see as much as you can. Yeah, I love that idea because it

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really is. It's. It's amazing what people are creating, what they're able to

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do. And it's. It is definitely a place because I'm

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a firm believer of, you know, great art. It's what Steve Jobs stole from

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Picasso. Great artists are bad. Artists copy. Great artists

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steal. And. And there is no shame in taking people's good ideas in the industry

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as long as you're not blatantly ripping it off and calling it your own. But

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taking their ideas, making it your own is. I am a fan of

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borrowing inspiration. Absolutely. Well, well, Diane, thank you.

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So you have been so fantastic. Thank you for sharing your wisdom and knowledge about

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so many things about visuals and images. I know

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I've got notes that I need to go and take and say, like, okay, gotta

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remember the rules of threes. And we don't like rules, of

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course, too much, but we definitely thank you for sharing with us

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and being a guest today. Well, thanks for having me. And I

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hope I won't have too many nightmares from that pink and green and blue slide.

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I hope not. If anyone wants to connect with you or follow you or

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get inspiration from you, where should they look? Three places, I would

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say. One is follow me on LinkedIn. The other is

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I contribute to two blogs. One is

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artisanelearning.com and the other is e elearning

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uncovered.com so artisan elearning is more at the decision

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maker level and Elearning Uncovered is more at the in the

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trenches, making those slides happen level. Awesome. Well,

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well, thank you again for being with us today. You bet.

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So thanks everybody. We want to thank Diane. She's so fantastic. Isn't that great? I.

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Hopefully you got wonderful information out of this. You're listening to it and thinking about

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how you can make your images more impactful, more meaningful, more helpful

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to your end audience. Audience. With that said, don't forget we are only going to

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be live on the YouTube channel. That's the Visual Lounge channel. We will not

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be on the text my channel. We'll still point to it there occasionally, but. But

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you know, go over to the Visual Lounge. Make sure you subscribe hit the bell.

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Or if you're listening to podcasts, make sure you put it into your podcast tool

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of choice. We're on all of them that you can find. You can even ask

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your smart speaker to play it for you if you're you really need to go

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to sleep or something at night. But we're, we're just so grateful for all of

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our great, wonderful guests that join us. We're grateful for our audience that joins us

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live and ask fantastic questions. And for you for just tuning in and

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listening. So don't forget, wherever you are, whatever you're doing, make sure you take a

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little bit of time. Level up every single day. Thanks, everybody. We will see

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you guys next week.

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About the Podcast

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The Visual Lounge
Discussions about the power of visuals and videos and how to make them even better.

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About your host

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Matthew Pierce

Matthew Pierce, Learning & Video Ambassador from TechSmith Corporation, has created videos for learning and marketing for over a decade. He is the lead behind TechSmith Academy, a free platform teaching video and image creation for business, which has been used by tens of thousands of users. He is the host of The Visual Lounge Podcast from TechSmith, which streams live on Youtube and LinkedIn weekly. Matthew is a regular speaker at multiple learning and development-focused conferences and is a regular contributor to various training publications. Connect with him on LinkedIn.