Friday, June 13, 2008

Universal Principles of Design - Perception

How can I influence the way a design is perceived?


Principle 1 - Alignment
The use of the "butterfly ballot" of Palm Beach from the 2000 presidential election provided a great point on how we should consider things like the alignment and how they affect the perception of the reader, not just the writer.  While the person who created this ballot probably completely understood how it was to be used, they should have considered the possible misconceptions it could create for the voters.  I will be sure to take this into account with my instructional materials.

Principle 2 - Color
On Page 38, Lidwell, Holden and Butler state, "Do not use color as the only means to impart information since a significant portion of the population has limited color vision."  Late in this school year I recall asking a question to one of my students that went something like, "Which line has a steeper slope, the green one or the blue one?" and his neighbors began to giggle.  Embarrassingly, I then found out that this young man was colorblind.  While I am not sure why neither he, nor his parents, ever notified us of this disability I became very worried about how many times that his inability to differentiate between colors may have hurt his understanding of concepts in my class.  I'd hope that in the future students would admit to this disability, but I will make efforts to avoid it anyhow.  While I may still use colors, I will also use other different forms of contrast (i.e., a solid red line and a dotted blue line) and reference them with their pictures rather than by stating their colors.  This may prevent confusion, without removing the richness that color can bring to materials.

Principle 3 - Consistency
I make efforts within my own class, as mentioned in my previous blog, to maintain consistency within the design of my instructional materials.  I try to maintain specific fonts, specific formats and specific methods of arrangement.  This internal consistency " . . . cultivates trust with people . . . [and] is an indicator that a system has been designed, and not cobbled together."  My team teachers and I (our middle school operates with teams - a science teacher, a language arts teacher, a social studies teacher and a math teacher that all teach the same students - try to utilize external consistency when possible as well.  We don't necessarily use the same fonts or test layouts, but we do tend to maintain consistencies in classroom management, etc.

1 comment:

jimguy said...

Your observations about colors and how they affect your student who is colorblind are a good example of knowing the rules (or principles) and then knowing how to use them.

In the classroom, you try to reach everyone with the same material. You try to work to the lowest common denominator. I don't mean that in a bad way, but you aim to have the most students in your classroom understand what you're trying to teach.

Every student learns in their own way. Some may be similar to others; some may be exactly like others; some may be totally different than others. You can't assume to know how they've learned or what they've learned before they get into your classroom.

But getting back to the lowest common denominator...in the case of creating contrast in your materials. Even though you're a teacher first, you have to be a little bit of a designer so that most of the students in your class can get what you're trying to present.

So using the contrast principle can help you investigate other ways to get that contrast; thick and thin, large and small, solid and dashed.

We try to challenge students to learn the material but they in turn can challenge us to present the material in the best way possible.

Every group of students is different, every year a new challenge.