Humans are visual creatures. In truth, our brains are wired to respond to pictures rather than words. That is why Pinterest and Instagram have become such a big part of our lives. This is also why Facebook posts and tweets with visual content receive the most likes and retweets.
However, as an instructional designer, you should be more interested in how the human brain processes picture more quickly than words. To make your eLearning more engaging, you must add compelling and exciting visual content like pictures to your courses. Reading through massive amounts of material, negotiating language ambiguities, and deciphering jargon and complex sentence patterns is made more accessible with visual aids.
Learn how to add the 11 most useful tools into your eLearning courses to ensure that your material sticks and resonates with your audience:
10 of the Most Powerful Visual Content Types to Include in eLearning
Photographs
Choosing photos should not be a last-minute decision. Do not look at it as a chore to approach without consideration, and then do it haphazardly. A relevant, memorable image is a great teaching tool that enhances learner engagement, minimizes cognitive load, and efficiently meets learning objectives.
Photographs that are meaningful and relevant arouse the viewers’ emotions and compel them to pay attention to the text. Photos can also be used to clarify complex learning topics and help learners remember what they’ve learned. But be careful in leveraging this tremendous visual tool; it’s easy to be misused and go awry.
Here are some suggestions:
- Only use high-resolution, eye-catching photos to engage students right away.
- Always strive to utilize photos to clarify and demystify complicated issues rather than mere adornment.
- Use photos that strike a chord with the students. Avoid generic visuals that appear to be generic.
Videos
Have you ever been puzzled why a video enthralls the same students who couldn’t stay up during a PowerPoint presentation? What about this medium that makes it so captivating? In a nutshell, video is a good fit for most learners’ learning styles.
People today prefer consuming content through videos rather than reading or listening to it, as evidenced by the phenomenal success of YouTube and Vimeo.
- More Engaging: Moving pictures bring vitality to content that would otherwise be dull. Videos allow you to offer content in a more exciting manner by leveraging real-life events and scenarios.
- It’s also a good idea to use videos for training. Learning is more successful with videos, and as an instructional designer, you want your courses to have the most impact, be talked about, and make a difference in the lives of your students. Right?. Learn more: Open source learning management system.
Icons and Illustrations
Stock photography sources may not always provide appropriate images for our needs. In such circumstances, using drawings and icons to help learners make sense of complex learning content is critical. Here are some pointers on how to make good visual content such as graphics and icons:
- Use pictures when you need to point out and explain the various pieces of an object, a process, or when the parts are tiny and hidden from view.
- To depict complex relationships and hidden patterns, use pictures or icons.
- Organize stuff with icons to make it scannable and digestible. This reduces distraction and aids learners in swiftly comprehending your topic. Use icons for bullet points, for example. This adds to the content’s intrigue without taking up important screen space.
Comics and Pictographs
Recall the time when you were a child, and you had to behave all week for Mom to let you watch your favorite cartoon show on Sunday. Remember how enthralled you were when you first picked up a weekly or monthly comic book? By the time you got home from the bookstore, you’d finished it.
Comic books have a way of reaching out to our inner child and touching it. They make no pretenses about being serious while teaching us life-changing truths.
Pictographs and simple line drawings are equally appealing. These simple drawings, which are not concerned with aesthetics, are beautiful tools for describing complex actions and procedures. They are easily comprehended even by persons with weak literacy or comprehension skills. Pictographs are so powerful that they are frequently utilized in medical situations.
Illustrations
Charts and graphs are helpful visual content types and learning aids for explaining complex relationships, revealing hidden patterns and trends, and connecting seemingly unrelated concepts and ideas. Some instances are as follows:
- Flow charts (also known as flow diagrams) are visual representations of a succession of actions or processes. They’re particularly handy for visualizing a multi-step process or a sequence of conditional outcomes.
- Pie charts depict percentages of a whole, such as how much money the government spent on each department last year.
- Vertical bar graphs help display changes in spending over time, such as total spending over the last ten years.
Infographics
If you frequently use the Internet, you’re well aware that infographics abound. Infographics come in useful and effectively describe many different scenarios, from explaining complex analytical reports to outlining processes and from representing facts to telling a tale.
Infographics are not only cool, but they’re also a visually appealing approach to deliver complex information and keep learners engaged. You can also use infographics to add interest to content, such as a list of statistics.
Captures of the Screen
These are the most effective visual content types for explaining computer procedures. Screencasts are frequently used in eLearning courses that educate how to navigate a new software or use an application. It’s logical since the students get to observe and work in a virtual version of the real-world setting they’ll be working in when they return to their desks.
Screenshots are also valuable for classes that teach students to fill out forms and submit them online. You may then add text blocks and arrows to clarify words and jargon and point out relationships between the various objects on the screen to augment and improve these graphics.
GIFs with Animations
Animated GIFs aren’t just for use on websites or emails with hilarious kitten videos. They should also be a part of your eLearning visual content toolkit. Because they involve activity, they frequently have a more significant effect than images. We adore action movies. Furthermore, animated GIFs can be just as successful as movies in conveying meaning, arousing emotions, and explaining procedures without consuming as much bandwidth. Again, animated GIFs can be used in various scenarios, from describing how to make organic soap to setting a mood.
Characters
We are social creatures. We interact with other people and are impacted by their ideas and suggestions. In reality, we are more receptive to faces than impersonal and unpleasant voices. That is why including visual content like characters into your eLearning courses might have a more significant impact than a block of text that appears to be aired to all and sundry by yet another corporation trying to shove its product down your throat.
Furthermore, incorporating characters into your eLearning courses offers students the feeling of being instructed by a teacher or mentor, just as they were in school. It also gives your readers something to visualize and cling to while bombarded with new information.
Refer to the following pointers to help you develop unique and compelling characters for your eLearning courses:
- Investigate the demographics of your target audience to learn about the types of personalities with which they can quickly and frequently identify.
- You can give your communications a casual tone by using characters or avatars. Make sure your character communicates naturally and entertainingly.
- Use your imagination! Create believable and human personalities that allow your audience to connect with you.
Notes on the Visual
Using sketch notes or graphic notes instead of boring written text is more enjoyable. With the aid of a few simple lines, arrows, and a little text, you may organize and integrate knowledge, bring concepts together, connect diverse ideas, and translate them into visual shapes.
Even if you don’t have a degree in fine arts, you can make fantastic graphic notes! Sketching is a technique for translating your content into a physical, visible form that you can share with learners. It is not intended to be an aesthetic masterpiece.
Typography
Did you aware that typography accounts for 90% of your website’s design? You can improve readability, increase information processing, and even engage learners’ emotions if you master typography.
Here’s how you can use typography to get learners’ attention:
- Use fonts that are clean, legible, and distinct from the rest of the screen’s graphical features.
- Play with colors to bring attention to the text on the screen and improve visibility and readability.
- Text and graphics should be in sync to look well on the screen.
- To focus the learner’s attention, provide contrast between different fonts or text and space.
Conclusion
Visual material and data elicit pleasant responses in humans. As eLearning grows more popular, instructors will be able to use a variety of material formats and capitalize on the impact of visuals, infographics, and illustrations to make learning more enjoyable, increase engagement, and enhance results.
