Back when I was working on video games, we used sound effects not only to make game play more engaging, but also to make it more difficulteven if sometimes those effects helped cue the...

As instructional designers, we know the power of helping our learners visualize data. However, we need to make sure we arent distorting the information in our efforts to clarify the key...

Instructional designers are almost burdened by an embarrassment of visual richesreadily available and relatively inexpensive artwork and photos. Before we do, take notice of the photo at...

Are simple slide or webpage layout choices undermining your instructional purpose? You probably noted that the powers of the diagonal line, the high contrast red color, and consistent color...

Just ask anyone working in advertising: nothing is better for selling an idea than an analogy. Hernan Casakin in Visual Analogy as a Cognitive Strategy in the Design Process: Expert Versus...

Students of film may be familiar with the classic 1920s Kuleshov experiment where audiences viewed Russian star Moszhukin reacting to a bowl of soup, a child in a coffin, and finally, to a...

Eighty percent of arguments over graphics start from the incorrect assumption that what my brain sees is the same as what your brain sees. As far as I know theres been no definitive study...

Whats your reaction to graphics in training that look, slide after slide, like these? Here are three: Desensitizing the learner to the importance of the graphic: When graphics are always...

Just concentrating on fixing these four issues will provide a huge bang of effectiveness. Some of us find ourselves on our own, floundering with blank PowerPoint slides and with little...