Creating Graphics for Learning and Performance: Lessons in Visual Literacy [Paperback]

Linda L. Lohr (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 17, 2002 | ISBN-10: 013090712X | ISBN-13: 978-0130907127

It's all here! Everything teachers and instructional designers need to know to produce effective, efficient, and appealing visuals for classrooms and training/performance settings—including web-based training and distance learning. This book explains the process of graphic design, exploring not only the rules that apply to designing graphics, but also the thinking, experimenting, and evaluating that goes into a good design. Blending information from such diverse sources as instructional design and architecture, graphic arts and ergonomics, the author provides a wealth of examples, exercises, and hands-on activities that reinforce content. Underlying everything is information processing theory and an emphasis on the importance of designing visuals that not only appeal to the eyes, but also support cognitive processes by helping learners select the most important information, organize that information, and integrate it into memory. For teachers and instructional designers.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

It's all here! Everything teachers and instructional designers need to know to produce effective, efficient, and appealing visuals for classrooms and training/performance settings—including web-based training and distance learning. This book explains the process of graphic design, exploring not only the rules that apply to designing graphics, but also the thinking, experimenting, and evaluating that goes into a good design. Blending information from such diverse sources as instructional design and architecture, graphic arts and ergonomics, the author provides a wealth of examples, exercises, and hands-on activities that reinforce content. Underlying everything is information processing theory and an emphasis on the importance of designing visuals that not only appeal to the eyes, but also support cognitive processes by helping learners select the most important information, organize that information, and integrate it into memory. For teachers and instructional designers.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

I wrote this book to help people create effective visuals—visuals that are clear, that communicate well, and that help people learn and/or perform their jobs better. As both an instructional design teacher and a practitioner in the field, I have encountered numerous examples of "bad" visual design. I have also talked with many professionals in a number of arenas (teachers, computer programmers, graphic artists, instructional designers).These people have extensive knowledge of their discipline, but they either lack knowledge or skill in visual design or think these principles are too complicated and time consuming to integrate into their dally practices. These professionals have voiced concerns like these:

• "When it comes to design, I just start grabbing any book I can, but I don't really know what I'm looking for."
• "There is an abundance of advice out there; it's hard to know which advice to pay attention to or where to begin."
• "I know something such as contrast is a good thing, and I'm supposed to teach contrast, but I don't even know what good contrast is. Is there enough ... too little?"
• "There seems to be this giant invisible step between analysis and creating something visual."

These comments aren't too surprising when one considers that most people receive years of training in verbal communication but receive almost no assistance in the art and science of communicating visually Technology makes creating visuals easier than ever, yet mastering a tool is not the same thing as using that tool wisely. Teachers, students, and practitioners everywhere need a resource that clearly and quickly explains why limiting the number of fonts is important, why using all capital letters in copy is not desirable, why it is important to go easy on the "bells and whistles," and how to make charts and graphs understandable.

This book helps people create instructional visuals without overwhelming them with seemingly endless rules and principles. Rather than giving a plethora of design advice, this text focuses on just three cognitively based principles of design (figure/ground, hierarchy, and gestalt) and a process for creating visuals based upon these principles. Underlying these three principles is information processing theory and the idea that effective visuals should support the cognitive processes of learners.

COVERAGE

In this book, a tools, actions, and perceptions framework is used. Tools are the basic elements of design and include type, shape, color, depth, and space. The tools chapters cover research on typography; descriptions of different typefaces; the difference between a type family and a font; how to use different shapes to unify, separate, and chunk information; how to use color effectively; how to put research on color to work; and how to use texture; depth, and space to focus attention.

Actions are the manipulations made to type, shape, color, depth, and space. By manipulating contrast, alignment, repetition, and proximity, designers learn to make an image more aesthetically pleasing and more instructionally efficient as well.

Learner perceptions are what the visual designer wants to influence by using tools and actions. The three chapters that cover perceptions are the heart and soul of this book. In the figure/round, hierarchy, and gestalt chapters (chapters 8, 9, and 10) the reader learns how to work with tools and actions to manipulate how the learner will "see" or perceive instructional information. These chapters integrate the information about tools and actions and cover, among other things, research-based rules for tables and charts, strategies for working with symmetrical and asymmetrical balance, and principles for instructional interface design.

In the last section of the text, an analyze, create, and evaluate (ACE) process, presented in the context of traditional and nontraditional instructional design models, explains how visuals are imagined, created, and tested for usability. This chapter covers synectic and other strategies for visual design, helpful advice (such as the diamond approach to design), and basic rules for usability testing. The final chapter, which covers resources, provides a quick guide to the tools of graphic design, including hardware, software, books, and Web resources.

Features

Throughout the text a delicate but user-friendly balance between theory and practice has been maintained. To afford the reader the best opportunity to learn theory and practice, the book has been set up to teach the knowledge and skills from both a collaborative and a constructivist orientation. From the first chapter on, readers are prompted to involve themselves in a series of visual design situations that can best be solved by applying the knowledge and skills learned as they progress through the book. First, readers experiment; with such tools as type, shape, color, depth, and space. Once they have learned to integrate these tools into their design practices, they will next learn how to apply actions of contrast, alignment, repetition, and proximity. In the final chapters readers are asked to experiment' with combining tools and actions to facilitate cognitive processes by making optimal use of figure/ground, hierarchy, and gestalt.

Format

The book has two structures, macro and micro. The macro structure uses the tools, actions, and perceptions organization with the intent of encouraging readers to experiment and gain confidence with type, shape, and color—before addressing the bigger challenge of using design to influence perception.

The micro, or chapter, structure uses the following sequence:

• Notes about the opening visual, a section in which the reader learns what the artist was thinking while he or she created the chapter opening design.
• Focus questions.
• Key terms.
• Introductory case study, in which one of four book characters is involved in a real-life chapter-related project. Numerous visual examples.
• Web activity, in which the text breaks in the middle of the chapter to allow the reader some hands-on practice with a visual problem.
• Summary.
• For more challenge activities on the Web with many examples.
• Questions for distance learning environments.

The text has been designed with both distance education and face-to-face learning environments in mind. Readers will find that both the layout of the book and the practices contained within implement well what the book preaches. Each chapter is filled with numerous graphics, easy-to-understand writing, and many hands-on activities. The book is also augmented with an extensive website where readers can view additional and frequently updated information and see other visual solutions to the various chapter activities. Given the nature and format of the assignments, teachers and students alike can participate in the learning process.

Ancillary Materials Available with This Text

An extensive website at http://www.coe.unco.edu/LindaLohr complements the textbook. This website includes the following for Chapters 1-10:

• A Web Activity section that presents a visual problem for readers to solve. Reader solutions to the visual problem are shared. Readers are encouraged to submit their own solutions to this website to provide additional examples.
• A More Info section that includes extra information about the chapter topic and "how to" steps for using software.
• A Challenge section that includes two or more hands-on activities that allow readers to practice their visual skills. Readers can see the solutions of other readers and submit their own solutions.
• A Discussion section that poses two or more thought-provoking questions that can be used for class or Web-based dialogue.
• A Links section that allows the reader to jump to related websites.

Product Details

• Paperback: 324 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall (October 17, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 013090712X
• ISBN-13: 978-0130907127
• Product Dimensions: 10.7 x 8.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,631,103 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Are you kidding me? Tremendously disappointed..., March 18, 2007

By 

Ken D. Thomas (Denver, CO United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Creating Graphics for Learning and Performance: Lessons in Visual Literacy (Paperback)

I was tremendously disappointed by this book... okay, that's out of the way. On the "plus" side, the book is well researched and Linda does an outstanding job of presenting the research. For example, the chapter on typography is probably the best single collection of font & typography I've ever read, pulling together 20 sources to cover the subject. Another plus was the chapter on hierarchy perceptions, which leverages 32 sources and some excellent examples stretching across 40 pages. These two chapters should help you improve your poorly designed reports and PowerPoint slides. Other than these fine highlights, the book fails to live up to its research, its title, or its praise from other reviewers.

Contrary to the review that says the author "practices what she preaches," the book violates several of the principles presented in the book. Evaluating the book according to the principles on typology (again, a very strong chapter), the text is too small, many of the fonts don't support the content, the text stretches too wide across the page, and is justified - all this combines to make this a very difficult book to read. The advanced organizer leveraged across 12 chapters of the book is completely dreadful and weak (e.g., the graphic to represent typography is the word "type," where each letter is a different font; the graphic for the chapter on shape has the word "shape" with a triangle behind it). The amount of instruction carried by pages and pages of hard-to-read text surprised me in a book about creating graphics for learning and performance - I expected to see solid examples of leveraging well-designed graphics to reduce the cognitive load of the text.

The most painful chapter is on the use of color in graphics... mind you, the book is printed in black and white on poor quality paper. The color wheel pages include the instruction to "fill in with markers or crayons." Are you kidding me??? Linda sites the books of Edward Tufte, as well as the books by Robin Williams (the designer, not the comic-actor). Here's what I find interesting about these authors - Tufte decided to take over the publication of his first book himself because the original publishers refused to use the desired paper stock and would not include his fold-outs; Williams' books are printed on high quality stock with high-end color graphics illustrating almost every point she makes. Tufte's books sell for $40-50, and Robin's for less than $40 (actually, in the $20s on Amazon!). The graphics in Linda's book look like they were drawn by a sixth grader, and her book costs more than Robin's and similar in price to Tufte's. I have no idea whether this was Linda's decision, or Pearson's (the Publishers), but not using a skilled graphic artist was a critical error.

In the Preface, Linda states she wrote the book to "help people create effective visuals - visuals that are clear, that communicate well, and that help people learn and/or perform their jobs better." She also infers her target audience includes teachers, instructional designers, and graphic artists. It's much more likely she wrote the book to support an undergraduate course in basic page and screen layout disguised as a course on instructional graphics. If this is your intended use, it will serve your purpose (especially when used in conjunction with the book's website). If, however, you are a graphic artist or instructional designer, I just can't justify the purchase of this book.

By the way, to the reviewer who wrote that "Linda Lohr is `the Tufte for Educators!'," I encourage you to actually read Tufte - Tufte is the Tufte for Educators. The way I see it, you owe me 50 bucks!

11 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Beyond Disbelief, July 14, 2008

By 

The Good/The Bad/The Ugly. - See all my reviews

This review is from: Creating Graphics for Learning and Performance: Lessons in Visual Literacy (Paperback)

Good: There is nothing good about this book
Bad: There is nothing bad about this book
Ugly: The title of this book should have been - "Lessons in Visual Illiteracy". This is not a book. This is more like a collection of detailed notes a high school student would make after looking at a dozen design books. There is absolutely no visual consistency in the graphics that appear in the book. It looks like the graphics for this book were created by some elementary school kid. The execution quality of the graphics & the overall layout of each & every page in the book is beyond disbelief. Margins, font size, font selection, visual style, visual balance, proportion, composition - you name it, and it has been molested beyond repair. The opening visual & "the notes about the opening visual" appear in the beginning of each chapter. The whole book is based on this absolutely meaningless, technically deficient, & visually impaired graphic. Prentice Hall should be careful about its reputation. They should use the right experts to write about a particular subject. Would you ever use a celebrity chef to write a book about how cutlery is made? Would you ever use Steven Spielberg to write a book on how a movie camera is made? This book is a perfect example of the author trying her level best to show her expertise in something that she clearly does not have a clue about. The author has taken all the well-documented & widely used graphic/visual design principles & tried to explain how they can be applied to learning. She has failed miserably. I can't believe I paid fifty bucks for this useless collection of paper rags.

Conclusion:
This book has nothing to offer.
If you want to learn about visual literacy, read the following
1.Introduction to two-dimensional Design by John Bowers
2.Focus on Designing by Vello Hubel (especially chapters 14 & 15)
3.Technical Communication by Rebecca E. Burnett (especially chapters 7,8,9)
4.Graphic Design Solutions by Robin Landa

Once you get a grasp of what visual literacy is all about, you can apply it successfully in any field of work - whether it is the learning industry, or the advertisement industry , the publishing industry, or your one-of-a-kind garage sale flyer - anything that requires any kind of visual communication. Don't waste your money on this book. It is useless.

15 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Tufte for Educators, February 23, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Creating Graphics for Learning and Performance: Lessons in Visual Literacy (Paperback)

Linda Lohr is "The Tufte for Educators!" Unlike many other authors of similar texts who do not practice what they preach, Dr. Lohr not only TELLS the reader what to do--she SHOWS the reader how to create graphics with hundreds of learner-friendly visuals that support and illustrate her lessons.