How diagrams
are usually developed
The events in the collaboration between a subject matter expert and a
graphics professional:
1 The subject matter expert is the author of
the instructional materials:
- develops a manuscript,
- produces
instructions concerning manuscripts,
- gathers examples of diagrams to
indicate the type of diagram required,
- gathers other forms of
artwork (photographs), from which diagrams are to be prepared,
-
describes the contents of the diagrams,
- describes the general type
of diagram.
2 The artwork specifications are given to the artist(s).
3 The artwork goes thru several drafts - author and artist interacting.
To keep development time low, the author has to be as specific as
possible.
The author makes clear to the artist what
the diagram should be trying to do and why.
It is a
good idea to present information for each diagram in several formats.
Ill-defined specifications often result in time consuming back and
forth process.
For the graphic aspects, the artists can mobilize their experience,
expertise and visual creativity.
An instructional designer can facilitate and improve this process.
Dangers when including diagrams
What is the main justification for including diagrams?
If the only reason for using diagrams are similar to
these, some serious rethinking needs to be done:
Pictures provide relief in breaking up the text.
Students find pictures more approachabel than text.
Pictures are more effective in instruction than text: explains better,
intrinsically more memorable.
Since we live in a highly visually oriented world, learners are
especially well attuned to processing pictorial information.
Visual forms of presentation are highly effective in capturing and
maintaining the attention.
Learners who have trouble learning from text find in pictures an
alternative means of access to the subject matter.
Instructional resources with a lot of pictures are better sold than
largely text based materials.
A diagram must make a worthwhile contribution to learning.
Like the
text has to be well focused on the topic and carefully written, the
diagram must be constructed with expertise to contribute to learning:
- with well-defined instructional objectives,
- assuming a
positive function as part of the overall instructional resource.
It is a good idea to devise a written justification for a diagram that
is to be used as part of the instruction and to have a colleague play
devil's advocate.
What should diagrams present?
When in doubt, throw it out!
The magic number of seven plus or minus two pieces: limit the amount of
information presented to between five an nine individual pieces.
If we want to show the angle of the teeth, only the wheel and it's
teeth need to be shown. And the teeth could be represented as single
angled lines.
This diagram is simple in graphical terms, but requires quite a
sophisticated process to be read.
The viewer must deal with the
meaning of the pieces of information as well as how many are presented.
The viewer must fill in a lot of informational gaps in the depiction:
- Parts that are normally hidden from view.
- Insufficient context
does not give enough clues about relations.
- Only part of the object
shown makes it difficult to identify it.
- Removing subtle graphic
characteristics (visual clues) makes the object more difficult to
identify.
- The diagram isolates particular quantitative
characteristics of the object.
- Explanatory additions require
appropriate interpretation.
The conflicts:
Trying to obtain graphic simplicity vs. making the subject matter
meaningful.
Providing the viewer with ways to make sense vs. keeping the very
directness that gives a simple diagram its explanatory potential.
Fundamental requirement:
Viewers can easily determine what they are
looking at in a diagram:
- the identity of the general subject matter,
- the instructional purpose,
- the relative viewing position,
- the focus of the diagram (whole thing or a part),
- the ways in
which the diagram differs from real-life situation.
The instructional designer needs to relate a particular diagram to the
material that precedes it, is associated with it and which follows it: a
great deal of care should be given to the context in which each diagram is
presented.
A diagram's instructional context
Levels of context:
- immediate context of surrounding text
-
more distant context of related material
- context of instructional
resource as a whole
- broad context of the task and instructional
setting
mailto:prolingua@access.ch
