Introduction
Last week, the Training, Learning, and Development Community hosted an event called Visual Design for Learning. In this post, I share some of my key takeaways from the two-day event, along with the resources that presenters and participants shared.
If you missed the conference, no worries. You’ll soon be able to watch recordings on TLDC’s YouTube channel. This post will help you decide which sessions to start with.
The Sessions
The event consisted of seven sessions with nine speakers who shared design inspiration, principles, tools, and techniques related to visual design for learning. Here’s a list of the sessions:
- Rod Hinn—Essential Frameworks of Visual Design for Learning
- Cameron Francis—Boosting Learner Engagement with Strategic Font Choices
- Leigh Ann Morgan—Creative Strategies for eLearning Visuals
- Jennifer Grimes—DIY Data Visualization: Tips, Tricks, and Tools to Tell Your Story
- Tanacha Gaines—Essential Design Tips for Non-Designers
- Kayleen Holt and Sean Pruitt—Not Just a Pretty Slide: Better Learnability Through Visual Design
- Sally Russick and Jess Oest—Visual Mastery: Harnessing Mayer’s Multimedia Principles for Effective Learning & Development
If you attended the conference, you can access the replays by using your link and viewing the schedule. If not, they should be available on TLDC’s YouTube channel in a few weeks.
Key Takeaways
Here are my key takeaways from the event, with a few slides from my presentation.
It's important to learn the fundamentals.
Some of the sessions presented design fundamentals. Rod Hinn’s session reviewed basic information about lines and shapes, typography, color, and imagery. And Tanacha Gaines went over some design fundamentals, including alignment, white space, proximity, color, and contrast.
My session also shared some fundamental principles. However, I’m an instructional designer, not a graphic designer. If you ever want an example of the difference between theoretically knowing how to do something and actually being able to do it, you could take a look inside my linen closet. My mother showed me how to fold fitted sheets. I “know” how it’s supposed to be done so it lays nice and flat, with crisp, straight corners just like a flat sheet. But the wadded-up mess in my linen closet is evidence that I never learned to apply that knowledge—or at least, that I don’t have the patience to apply it correctly. (I think my mother must have used some kind of sorcery.)
So anyway, I asked a graphic designer I work with frequently, Sean Pruitt, to help me better apply the design principles in my presentation. I sent him my slides, and he helped tweak the design in places and totally overhaul it in others. Then he helped me present the session as well.
Sean discussed the four basic design elements of contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity.
Before-and-After Example
To see how Sean applied these principles, he shared some before-and-after slide design examples, discussing the reasoning behind the changes he made. I found his explanations really useful for learning to use the principles myself.
Effective visual design isn't about "pretty."
In Rod Hinn’s session, he pointed out that visual design is really a facilitator; it helps our users achieve their goals. A pretty design is really the effect of good design, not the goal.
"An aesthetic appearance is a result of our facilitation, not an end by itself."
In my session, I shared research findings about how effective visual design improves peoples’ ability to learn from our content. I also shared my principles for learnability SUCCESS, gleaned from blending visual design principles and learning principles.
"Design should be with intent. It should solve a problem."
Fonts matter!
Cameron Francis presented an enlightening session about making strategic font choices. He shared ideas for finding inspiration when choosing fonts and how to find trending fonts. If you’ve been wanting to learn how to choose fonts, this is the session for you.
"A good font choice conveys that the designer understands both the content and the audience."
In my session, I shared some findings from research about the power of typography:
- When font and meaning are in harmony, people read faster.
- When instructions are harder to read, the activity seems more complicated and time-consuming.
- Good typography can improve creative problem solving.
Cameron pointed out that choosing a serif vs. sans serif font is highly debated, with research pointing to both as either aiding or inhibiting legibility. Rod Hinn mentioned that serif fonts (such as Times New Roman) are generally used more in print materials, while sans serif fonts (such as Arial), are used more in digital media.
Good visual design requires planning.
Rod Hinn, Cameron Francis, and Leigh Ann Morgan all mentioned the importance of planning the design using things like mood boards and style guides. Cameron shared the style guide for his presentation, which is helpful for seeing not only what a style guide looks like, but also what the styles look like in action—in the finished presentation.
One key takeaway from his session for me was that I need include keywords in my style guides related to ethos (a Greek word meaning “character”), or the mood or feeling I want to convey with a particular design. For example, the ethos keywords Cameron shared for his presentation design were inviting, fresh, friendly, unique, and approachable.
Leigh Ann’s session was chock-full of ways to help us get inspiration for our design ideas. She share three ideation techniques for visual design: experimenting, exploring, and extending. She also shared five brainstorming techniques, as well as many tools she uses for design inspiration. Be sure to check out the links at the end of this post for Leigh Ann’s handout.
Decluttering is essential.
Sally Russick and Jess Oest discussed Mayer’s Principles and the importance of reducing extraneous processing to manage cognitive load. If you’re not familiar with Mayer’s Principles (or if you thought there were still only 12 of them), be sure to check out the recording of this session for an essential primer.
Jennifer Grimes’ presentation focused on how to visually present data so users can make sense of it and learn from it. She shared some terrific examples and resources. Anyone who designs charts and graphs will benefit from watching the recording of Jennifer’s session.
"Visual design choices have a huge effect on how learners perceive and process information and how they approach tasks."
The designer's toolbox is never full.
Whether you consider yourself an instructional designer, graphic designer, or none of the above, if you’re designing learning experiences, there are lots of tools to help you do it better. And even if you’re “well-seasoned” with that Old Bay like me, there is always more to learn.
My favorite part of Tanacha Gaines’ session was when she walked through some basics of getting started with Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. She showed how to make some simple design edits, which should help demystify those tools for folks who find them intimidating.
There were also many, many other tools shared throughout the two-day event, from image editors and generative AI to design inspiration and accessibility tools. The incredible Cyndi Nagel compiled all the resources shared during the event into a Google Doc, which is linked at the end of this post.
Summary
To recap, here are my six takeaways from the Visual Design for Learning event.
- It’s important to learn the fundamentals.
- Effective visual design isn’t about “pretty.”
- Fonts matter!
- Good visual design requires planning.
- Decluttering is essential.
- The designer’s toolbox is never full.
Topics
If you want to watch the recordings (when they’re available) and are wondering where to start, here’s a list of topics with the presenters’ names who discussed those topics:
- Design ideation and inspiration: Leigh Ann Morgan
- Design fundamentals: Rodd Hin, Tanacha Gaines, and Kayleen Holt/Sean Pruitt
- Learning principles: Sally Russick/Jess Oest and Kayleen Holt/Sean Pruitt
- Typography: Cameron Francis (application) and Kayleen Holt/Sean Pruitt (theory)
- Data visualization: Jennifer Grimes
Resources
Many thanks to Cyndi Nagel for creating this list of resources shared throughout the event.
"Design is the intermediary between information and understanding."
