Visual Design Critique

Slide 1

The main strength for this slide is it actually makes use of sound clips in learning. Since we learn 10% through our sense of hearing, sound clips can be useful in enhancing the learning (Wong, A. F. L., & Cheung, W. S. (1999) ). A recording of speech is made in the first slide to provide instructions to the audience. The voice is pleasant and the audio quality is quite clear (although with some background noise). High quality audio recording can be especially useful to audience such as young children who are not proficient in reading yet. However, here, it seems that the contents are made for lower primary students who are already proficient in reading. . Rather, the audio recording is more to provide clear instructions to guide the users where they should pay attention to. Sounds clips of frogs are also used to create interest to the audience. This can be especially useful in catching attention from the young learners. It actually wakes their curiosity and makes them wish to explore the topic further.

Other strengths include: Font - Also, the fonts in this slide made use of either Sans Serif font or simple serif font – Times New Roman ((Wong, A. F. L., & Cheung, W. S. (1999).). These fonts are sharper and allow audience to read easily. Only 2 main fonts which harmonise well are used in this slide to avoid being too fanciful. Font size are kept at minimum of size 24 to allow audience who are sitting far away from the screen to see clearly too. Lettering colours are in harmony with the background. Important words are highlighted in reds to capture the audience attention. In fact, the word “button” is underlined to further emphasize on it.Titles – Short title has been used to allow reader to understand with one glance.  

However, the colour scheme used is rather dull although in harmony. For example, the title can be made purple instead of brown to add as appeal to the audience. In fact, “Word Art” can be used for titles instead of normal text to make the slides more appealing for the young audience.  Pictures – Also, the frog picture can be made more interesting by using real photographs of frogs or even videos of frogs instead of using the simple picture of a common frog. Audience should have seen what a common frog looks like. Care must be taken to select the right photos or videos that students have not seen before eg. a blue colour frog (D.Azureus Suriname) or documentary videos of scientists discussing frog issues to provide an interesting opening for the students.  

Slide 2

The main strength for this slide is the title has been kept short, and all in capital letters. Readers are attracted to the title instantly.

Other strengths include:

Font – Similar to slide 1, fonts are of the correct size, colour and type. In addition, important words are bold to emphasize it to the audience.

Text animation –However, text animation is poorly done – Words come out one by one is slow, distracting and irritates the audience. Furthermore, it is noisy and does not have any value adding to the powerpoint. Text animation should be kept to the minimum (Wong, A. F. L., & Cheung, W. S. (1999)). Perhaps allowing each bullet point to “fly out” one at a time will be better. Also, the pictures does not illustrate the text

Bullet points – Although bullet points are used to arrange the content to allow easy reading, the bullet points are not aligned and the words are “center” instead of aligned to left, making it very untidy and difficult to read.

Layout – Alignment of text with graphics can also be made better by having all the graphics to the left to be it more balance and neat.

Pictures - Pictures are used but does not really illustrate the content. Example for the point “Frogs have long back legs and webbed feet…” , the teacher could have used a picture that focus on showing the frog’s leg and she can use arrows or pointers to direct focus to the frog’s legs.

Slide 3

The main strength for this slide is the graphics (static visual display) are used to aid in learning. The graphics illustrate and explain the life cycle of frogs clearly. The graphics are arranged in a circle (which is familiar to the students) to illustrate the idea that the process actually repeats after the last stage.  

Other strengths include:

Font – Similar to slide 1, fonts are of the correct size, colour and type. The teacher also bolds all the hyperlinks in red to allow the user to know where to click and the audience to draw the linkage that all the red bold words are “stages”.  This enhance the learning of the audience – the students will learn that the three main and important stages of frog’s life cycle are eggs, tadpole and young frog. Note that, the red words can also be made slightly bigger to allow audience from the back to see more clearly.

Titles – Similar to slide 1, short title has been used to allow reader to understand with one glance.

However, the subtitle (CLICK ON THE STAGE THAT YOU WANT TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT), are all in capital letters. This actually slows down the reading by the audience (Wong, A. F. L., & Cheung, W. S. (1999)). It is not required here. Rather, the teacher could have only made the word “CLICK” appears as capital letters while the rest in small caps.

Slide 4

The main strength for this slide is it makes use of user friendly hyperlinks to allow user to link to other pages easily. The hyperlinks are in red buttons or wordings. In fact pictures relating to the stages are placed on top of the hyperlinks to allow user to easily recognize and notice the hyperlinks eg. a tadpole picture is placed on top of the tadpole hyperlink. Note that the picture of the hyperlinks could have been made much smaller to avoid confusing the audience (since the slide has nothing to do with tadpole and young frog).

Other strengths include:

Font – Similar to slide 1, fonts are of the correct size, colour and type.

Titles – Similar to slide 1, short title has been used to allow reader to understand with one glance.

However, the dynamic visual display used does not aid in learning. The animated frog is distracting to the audience. The picture does not aid in the explanation but only serves as decorative purposes (Wong, A. F. L., & Cheung, W. S. (1999)). It should not be placed in this slide.

Text animation – Similar to slide 2 , text animation is poorly done – Words come out one by one is slow and distracting.

Bullet points – Similar to slide 2, the bullet points should have been aligned.

Slide 5

The main strength for this slide is meaningful static visual displays are used to aid in the learning of students. Simple line drawings of tadpoles are used to illustrate the growing process of tadpoles. Students can made used of the drawings to get a clear understanding of the process. They can easily make comparison of the pictures to see the difference in the physical appearance of a tadpole as it grows. The pictures are also placed next to the specific paragraph of text to explain the process in detail. Hence each set of picture and text works together to explain each growing stage clearly.

Other strengths include: Layout –Informal balance is achieved by having asymmetric presentation with pictures on left and text on the right. It makes the layout more interesting and dynamic but yet not messy. Bullet points – Bullet points are used to arrange the information. Bullet points are aligned to allow audience to read the contents easily. Text animation – The text animation has been done well. Words come out together as a whole paragraph. It is less distracting and the teacher can allow the bullet point to appear one at a time as she explain the relevant bullet point. Titles – Similar to slide 1, short title has been used to allow reader to understand with one glance.  

However, the font size is too small (only font 18). As a result, audience may not be able to read from far. This could be partly due to too much information being display on 1 slide. There are too many lines on this slide. Audience may feel information overload. They may not be able to focus as they read and end up “skipping a line” in the process. The teacher can either be more concise in the information or create additional slide and move the last bullet point to the additional slide. The teacher can also use Roman numbers instead of words to cut down on the wordings eg. “14^th” instead of “fourteen”.

Hyperlinks – Hyperlinks (the red buttons) appear on the top instead of on the right column. Although this is a minor problem, the teacher could have been more consistent to place them on the right column to allow user to find them easily.

Slide 6

The strengths of this slide include:

Hyperlinks – Similar to slide 4, hyperlinks are used to allow user to go back to previous slides if they need to review. Note that the pictures above the hyperlink should be make smaller so as not to confuse the audience.

Font – Similar to slide 1, fonts are of the correct size, colour and type.

Bullet points – Similar to slide 5, bullet points are used and are aligned. Titles – Similar to slide 1, short title has been used to allow reader to understand with one glance.

However, more pictures related to the frog growing process should be added and place next to the relevant point. Static virtual display like a frog with tail and a frog without should be used to show the contrast. Number of lines - similar to slide 5, they are too many lines for this slide. Additional slide could be added or be more concise in the explanation. Roman numbers like 3 instead of three years.

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