I wanted to share a paper I came across while researching a piece on Human Factors Engineering for a Multitouch Interfaces.
In the paper, Richard E. Mayer and Roxana Moreno of UCSB lay out five key principals for designing new multimedia interfaces:
Multiple Representation Principle:
Its is better to present an explanation in words and pictures than solely in words.
Contiguity Principle:
When giving a multimedia explanation, present corresponding words and pictures contiguously rather than separately.
Split-Attention Principle:
When giving a multimedia explanation, present words as auditory narration rather than as visual on-screen text.
Individual Differences Principle:
The foregoing principles are more important for lowknowledge
than high-knowledge learners, and for high-spatial rather than low-spatial learners.
Coherence Principle:
When giving a multimedia explanation, use few rather than many extraneous words and pictures.
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Hi. I'm a fan of Richard E. Mayer's work.
ReplyDeleteHe edited the book "The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning", which fleshes out the principles you mentioned. I have his Multimedia Learning book, which came out in 2001. The second edition was released in hardcover this year- I'm waiting for the paper-back version. I'm sure it will be a great resource!
Hey Jonathan, how have you been.
ReplyDeleteJust a note about the paper. It's a nice find, but it's not really helpful in an actual interface design context.
It's real use would be in designing a help system. Like the Globe tutorial we did for Win7.
I think we followed all of his suggestions as well. I can't recall exactly.
Hi Ron,
ReplyDeleteGreat to hear from you. Hope life is treating you well in the great white northwest.
While I agree that the paper in not useful in all contexts, if most applications followed Mayer's advice, they would sure be easier to use.
~J