Effective Multimedia Design

Effective Visual Design Statements

Chang. D. et al “Gestalt Theory in Visual Screen Design – A New Look at an Old Subject”

1)    The distillation of 114 Gestalt laws to indentify 11 guidelines for screen design provides a useful tool for enhancing instructional screen display.  The application of these guidelines provides a framework to guide the construction and placement of individual screen elements.  Through their use designers can improve their understanding of how elements are organised into fields or structures to improve instructional screen design and hence improve learning.

2)    Those without special visual education recognise the value of visual interface design for their own learning and for improving screen appearance in learning effectiveness. Even though there is some uncertainty about the educational benefits of some of the Gestals laws, an understanding of effective visual design is increasingly necessary as educators  become more involved with instructional screen-base learning.

DeRosia. E. “The Effectiveness of Nonverbal Symbolic Signs and Metaphors in Advertisements: An Experimental Inquiry”

1)    It is argued that nonverbal advertising elements in real-world advertisements are richer and more complex than those used in consumer-psychology research.  To comprehend complex meaning of nonverbal symbolic signs and metaphors consumers are required to exert a non-trivial level of cognitive effort to be active interpreters of meaning.  As authors of ads intend to suggest meaning an understanding of how viewers decode text to derive meaning is required.  Interpretation is context, time and culturally dependent and is not necessarily automatic.  

2)    The effectiveness of nonverbal symbolic signs and metaphors will be low among ad recipients with low motivation and those with high motivation. It will however be high among ad recipients with moderate motivation.  For this reason effective stimulus should suggest meaning that recipients are likely to counterargue. 

Hastler. B. et al “Learner Control, Cognitive Load and Instructional Animation”

1)    The need for effective use of animation for learning is highlighted by the fact that animation can pose a greater threat to cognitive processing demands than static visuals due to the transient nature of critical elements in animation. Animation can be too fast and too complex to be accurately perceived. Learner control to pace animation for instructional purposes contributes to improved learning.

2)    Perceived access to control and factors other than control may enhance student motivation & attention when viewing animation.  Learners with stop-play control out performed the continuous play group even though most participants in the stop-play group viewed the animation continuously. The benefits of learner-controlled animation are enhanced when students are asked to evaluate their understanding before receiving corrective feedback.

Mayer. R, & Moreno. R.   “Nine Ways to Reduce Cognitive Load in Multimedia Learning”  

 1)    In multimedia learning, active processing requires five cognitive processes: selecting words, selecting images, organizing words, organizing images, and integrating.  Instructional design recognizes the need for multimedia instruction that is sensitive to cognitive overload. Cognitive overload occurs when total intended processing exceeds learners cognitive capacity. Reducing cognitive load can involve redistributing essential processing, reducing incidental processing or reducing representational holding.    

2)  Limited human capacity exists for both auditory and visual processing. To avoid cognitive overload when learning from multimedia, efficient use of this capacity is required. To reduce cognitive load in multimedia learning:

i.      Off-load essential processing from visual channel to audio channel.

ii.     Segment to allow time between bite-size segments.

iii.   Pretrain names and characteristics to familiarise beforehand.

iv.    Weed out unecessary interesting but extraneous material.

v.     Signal with cues to support processing of materia.

vi.    Align text near corresponding images to reduce visual scanning.

vii.  Eliminating redundancy or duplication of text and narration.

viii. Synchronizing narration with corresponding animation to minimize representations held in memory.

ix.    Individualizing learning to match learners’ skill of holding mental representations.

Interface Design and Visualisation: esoteric words & phrases

Abstract Thought

Aspiration

Aura

Gestural Interfaces & Usability

Article: Gestural Interfaces: A Step Backward in Usability D. Norman, J. Nielsen

In this article Don Norman claims that developers responsible for gestural interface design are ignoring interactive design principles, thus creating an unnecessary usability crisis. (Norman & Nielsen, 2010).  The reasons for these misguided oversights appear related to ignorance, a desire for companies to quickly release creative initiatives and hence justify inadequate laboratory testing.  Companies are also trying to protect their proprietary products through adherence to ill-informed company design guidelines rather than utilizing more broadly recognised design principles.

Norman indicates that users of gestural interfaced devices are frustrated, confused and on occasions unexpectedly surprised.  Using fundamental, non-technical, tested principles of design, Norman outlines specific issues with Android devices and iPhones.  Problems related to visibility, feedback, consistency, non-destructive operations, discoverability, scalability and reliability are identified. Rather than the use of the arbitrary company interface design guidelines, Norman advocates the return to well-established usability guidelines based on solid principles of interactive design.

To assess the quality of an interface, it is helpful to consider five components of usability identified by Nielsen (2003).  

1.    Learnability is determined by task accomplishment of first time users.

2.    Efficiency is task achievement by familiar users. 

3.    Memorability is re-established proficiency after not using a device.

4.    Errors identify the frequency, severity and recovery of interruptions.

5.    Satisfaction indicates how pleasant the design is to use.

Most of the issues identified by Norman relate to efficiency and errors and include inconsistency with commands and unexpected quits. Consequently learnability is influenced for first time users.  In addition, memorability is influenced, particularly where different applications require the learning of new sets of commands.  Many of the challenges are a consequence of the ambitious goal to transition from traditional keyboard and mouse input devices to the gestural interfaced devices where menus are often absent.  The need for sound design principles in this context is increasingly important.

Norman’s suggestion that gestural interfaces are a step backwards in usability is less compelling.  It was also unclear why he indicated why the interface systems under threat.  Human computer interface has a history of being far from optimum, yet computers have still contributed significantly to increased human productivity and continued improvement in their usability is evident.  The first IBM personal computers were supported by Microsoft’s acquired QDOS, a quick and dirty operating system designed for enthusiasts and hobbiest but not for release to the public (Deepak, 2001).  Yet despite this heritage, improvements relating to technology usability are well documented.  iPhone App users are described as suffering less misery and being happier that regular web users (Nielsen, 2010b). The first impressions from many iPad app users describe the interfaces as ‘beautiful’ compared with not-app web user descriptions of web pages as ‘busy’ (Nielsen, 2010a). This suggests that reasonable degrees of usability satisfaction is being experienced (Nielsen, 2003). 

The evolving nature of human computer interfaces would suggest that an optimum state of usability could be difficult to attain with initial implementation of an innovation that provides a different paradigm of interaction, as is the case with gesture-interfaced devices.  According to Nielsen (2011), the usability evaluation of the iPad one year after its release, indicates that the focus of its use was still evolving.  As with any new device, defining a representative user can be problematic, making it difficult to evaluate.  In the case of the iPad there are uncertainties as to whether its primarily use is leisure, productivity, or both.  Ambivalence also exists as to whether it is more likely to be used by a single user of by multiple users.  It is also important to recognise that a complete set of design guidelines is still evolving (Nielsen, 2011).  The interface challenges are more complex considering the multimedia elements present and the increased number of options available to developers (Nielsen in Sutcliffe, Kurniawan, & Shin, 2006).  In defense of developers, it is appropriate to recognize that not all guidelines have been tested and are not necessarily easy to apply on a commercial scale (Sutcliffe, et al., 2006).

The article appears to understate the complexity of these devices and how much progress has been made, due largely to compliance with existing design principles.  With new paradigms, Nielsen (2010b) identifies the need for a sufficiently different interface, not one ported from a previous old paradigm.  There is evidence that this has occurred with gesture-interfaced devices.  The number of displayed objects is reduced to adjust from mouse or stylus pointing to finger pointing.  Additional space is provided between objects as part of the design to provide the necessary touch zones.  Future applications incorporating appropriate usability elements will see dynamic news media, adjustable manipulative and personalized data visualizations that will revolutionize how we interact with media.  Natural actions of novel gestural movements are sure to accompany these innovations (Prekopcsk, Halcsy, & GsprPapanek, 2008).

Usability testing is recommend and is most beneficial in the design phase of development (Reeves & Hedberg, 2008).  However, rapidly changing technologies result in considerable pressure that may prevent time consuming laboratory testing when competitive advantage is gained by the early release of technology innovation. The challenge will be to provide the exploration and testing required to maintain optimum levels of usability.

Reference List

Deepak, N. (2001). History of Microsoft. from http://homepage.mac.com/shentzu/dmoz/hatems.html

Nielsen, J. (2003). Usability 101: Introduction to usability. Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox, 25.

Nielsen, J. (2010a). iPad Usability: First Findings From User Testing.   Retrieved 26 August, 2011, from http://www.useit.com/alertbox/ipad-1st-study.html

Nielsen, J. (2010b). iPhone Apps Need Low Starting Hurdles. from http://www.useit.com/alertbox/mobile-apps-initial-use.html

Nielsen, J. (2011). iPad Usability: Year One.   Retrieved 26 August, 2011, from http://www.useit.com/alertbox/ipad.html

Norman, D. A., & Nielsen, J. (2010). The way I see it Gestural interfaces: a step backward in usability. interactions, 17(5), 46-49.

Prekopcsk, Z., Halcsy, P., & GsprPapanek, C. (2008). Design and development of an everyday hand gesture interface.

Reeves, T. C., & Hedberg, J. G. (2008). Evaluating E-Learning A User-Friendly Guide.

Sutcliffe, A. G., Kurniawan, S., & Shin, J. E. (2006). A method and advisor tool for multimedia user interface design. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 64(4), 375-392.

Examples of Accelerometer Use

Swords and Robots

iDrive

Accelerometers Increase Usability of Devices

An accelerometer is a device that detects not only movement but can also detect and measure tilt, shock and vibration. Accelerometers were originally used in mobile phones to detect the phone’s orientation when held, for the purpose of displaying images or screen content in landscape or portrait format as the phone is rotated.   More recent applications using accelerometer technology allows for monitoring of physically gestures, interactive games, simulations (sword fighting), the control of external devices (cars, toys and robots) and useful tools (spirit level).  Development of new accelerometer-based applications will provide ever expanding applications to facilitate increasing levels of usability for these devices. 

http://www.analog.com/en/mems-sensors/low-g-accelerometers/products/index.html

Pattie Maes and the SixthSense

http://www.ted.com/talks/pattie_maes_demos_the_sixth_sense.html 
A wearable device that incorporates sophisticated object recognition, image capturing, gesture interfacing, image projection and seamless access to meta-information provides limitless innovative opportunities for designers of interactive multimedia.  The devices would not only save time accessing information but is likely to enhance anytime, anywhere learning environments, particularly with multi-user and collaborative-interactive models.   While it may be embarrassing if I didn’t recognise a well-known presenter at a conference, I’m not sure I could appropriately and in a timely manner stare at their chest in order to become more informed while commencing conversation.  I’m not sure I wish to be deprived of the invigorating uncertainty of what awaits me as I meet new people.  An exciting innovation? - Yes.  Some of the applications suggested? – I’m not sure.  I may be less aware of my ignorance of ‘what to do next’ that I should be.

PowerPoint Misuse & Audience Abuse

PRESENTATION TIPS FOR STUDENTS

Ditch the software and just speak

Presentation software can be a 'dangerous distraction that interferes with communication ...I  often think the presenter would be more compelling if he would ditch the presentation software and just speak.'

 http://michaelhyatt.com/five-rules-for-better-presentations.html

Research points the finger at PowerPoint

'The use of the PowerPoint presentation has been a disaster,' Professor Sweller said. 'It should be ditched.' http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/04/03/1175366240499.html 

PowerPoint is Evil 

"Audience boredom is usually a content failure, not a decoration failure." 

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/ppt2.html

Guy Kawasaki on the 'importance of a good presentation'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrF9Znu9yVo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liQLdRk0Ziw
Consider the 10 20 30 Rule
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liQLdRk0Ziw

Consider the 'Takahashi Method'  (minimal slide content)

http://presentationzen.blogs.com/presentationzen/2005/09/living_large_ta.html

Sample of slides

http://www.garrreynolds.com/Presentation/sample1.html

The Power of Visualisation - "The Joy of Stats - Hanns Rosling"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkSRLYSojo
Explore the world of Gapminder: http://www.gapminder.org/ 

Reasons to include a slide in your presentation:

1) To show presentation structure

2) To highlight a major point

3) To increase the power of your message. (eg introduce slide with: 'Let me show you what I mean' and then display the image, graph, video etc)