Carefully consider whether each multimedia component is necessary to meet the desired learning outcome.
Good and Bad Examples:
Whether you're producing videos for an online course, sharing a photograph with students, building a slide-based presentation, or creating any type of multimedia presentation, there are a few key principles to keep in mind while building your content.
Based on the work of Richard Mayer1, we recommend focusing your use of multimedia by concentrating on three goals:
The following sections outline how to accomplish each goal.
Learning is hard – don't make it harder. These first principles will ensure that you're not placing an unnecessary load on the learner's cognitive processes.
| Principle | Description |
|---|---|
| Coherence | Carefully consider whether each multimedia component is necessary to meet the desired learning outcome. Good and Bad Examples: |
| Signaling | Highlight essential material. |
| Redundancy | Limit multimedia to narration and animation when possible, avoid including redundant on-screen text. |
| Spatial Contiguity | Display corresponding words and pictures near each another. |
| Temporal Contiguity | Sync corresponding visuals and audio. |
Trying to explain the unexplainable? These principles outline ways to clarify content that is particularly complex.
| Principle | Description |
|---|---|
| Segmenting | Allow the learner to control the pace of multimedia presentations. Good and Bad Examples: |
| Pretraining | Provide an opportunity for learners to learn basic, prerequisite content before launching a more complex multimedia presentation. |
| Modality | When possible, use graphics with spoken text rather than graphics with written text. On-screen text requires split attention between graphics and text. |
Are you such a good instructor that your learner has brain power left over? If so, help them build their own meaning.
| Principle | Description |
|---|---|
| Multimedia | Present words and pictures rather than words alone. Good and Bad Examples: |
| Personalization | Use a conversational tone rather than a formal tone. |