Module 11

Excitement: Juicing Up Your Design

The design process is like walking a tightrope. On the one hand, you want your design to be clean and clear, so the audience can easily understand the content or find the information they are seeking. On the other hand, you want it to be dynamic and energetic, to keep the audience interested and motivated. When you add visual interest, your design will have more appeal. Look at the graphic above, instead of using bullet points, icons and boxes are used to list the six eLearning design skills. It is more eye catching and interesting, isn’t it!?

In this module, we will find ways to add visual excitement that won’t interfere with the audience getting the message. These ideas are just the start. Once you start, you will find lots of ways to add visual interest yourself.

Goals and Outcomes

Goals

During this module, students will:

• be exposed to the ideas on how to make a design interesting
• understand alternatives for bullet points
• understand different design strategies to surprise and delight the viewers.

Outcomes

After completing this module, students will be able to:

• create an exciting design
• avoid using too many bullet points
• create an effective design to surprise and delight the audience
• add visual interest on a low budget.

Selected Readings

Required

• Chapter 13 from the following book:
  Malamed, C. (2015). Visual design solutions: Principles and creative inspiration for learning professionals. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.

Recommended

• http://justcreative.com/2009/05/19/web-design-polishing-tutorial/

“To Do” List

Before and After #10: Excitement

Please read the Before and After Assignment description page for further details about this assignment.

Outcomes

After completing this assignment, you will be able to:

• create an exciting design
• avoid using too many bullet points
• create an effective design to surprise and delight the audience
• add visual interest on a low budget.

Instructions

1. Identify an image (before image) that violates visual design principles regarding Excitement introduced in Chapter 13. Save your before onto your computer.
2. Create a new file (1200 x 1800 pixels, 72 Pixel/Inch) with Adobe Photoshop.
3. In the new file (after image), recreate the same information in the before image, but make each visual element comply with visual design principles introduced in previous modules and Chapter 13.
4. Upload both before and after images, including JPG and PSD files, onto a Weebly page.
5. In a paragraph (between 200 – 400 words), describe explicitly why the before image fails to comply with the visual principles and how you corrected it with your new design.
6. Examples:
   http://stacyownbeygraphicdesignforinstruction.weebly.com/ba-10.html (by Stacy Ownbey)
   http://edit744.weebly.com/before–after-10.html (by Jessica Hall)

Submitting and Posting

1. 1. To submit your work, post URL of your Weebly page to the corresponding link under Submissions inside Moodle before 11:59 p.m. U.S. EST/EDT on the following Monday.

on the following Monday.

Grading

Your work will be graded based on the following requirements:

• Both images are uploaded (1 pt).
• The after image contains the same information presented in the before image (1 pt).
• The after image complies with visual design principles introduced in previous modules and Chapter 13 (2 pts).
• The narrative description is provided and it explicitly examines both images using visual design principles introduced in Chapter 13 (2 pts).