Organization

For our EDTECH506 wk10 assignment we are tasked with creating an image that represents strategies in organization. I chose to use Pictochart for this assignment because I really wanted to demonstrate order and organization in a clear way and that is something Pictochart does well.

I used consistent coloring and shapes as with the rest of the unit. The only thing I varied was the background pattern. I’m not sure I like it, I tend to like white backgrounds but wanted to try something new (for me). As far as organization, I used a solid path with numbering to indicate order. The eye is led down the page and presented with content at each section.

Using Color and Space

For this week, I began to really dig into the “meat” of my project by working on a draft for my tutorials. I have re-used elements from past assignments to create consistency throughout the unit. Elements such as the header, font choice, and colors are all part of the overall style. While the content of this image will change and become more involved, the basic “style guide” is developed.

Color is being used to create consistency with the headings and text. I have found with tutorials that students respond better when the instructions are simple and the verbs are highlighted. This is what I have done with the highlighted words. Every time there is an expected action, the word is bolded and blued. I have also purposely distributed each section paying close attention to the white-space of the page, making sure everything has a place and nothing is crowded.

Reflecting on this image has me wondering if the left/right format of the tutorial is how I really want to proceed. I really like this format as it allows for several steps to be described in a single image. What I wonder is if a more vertical format will allow for screenshots with more information showing. Or perhaps I need to consider a mix of both formats. I will know better as I build it out.

Selection Principle: Emphasizing Figure and Ground

The main idea behind this weeks EDTECH506 graphic is using emphasis to draw out meaning. The terms used in the chapter are figure for the thing that you want to emphasize and ground for what is in the background. The readings for the week showed different examples of calling attention to content using many basic design principles such as manipulating positive and negative space. As I browsed through the examples, I got a better understanding of applying these principles to creating instructional materials. For my project this week, I chose to create a poster for the classroom showing the Google Slides toolbar.

The instructional purpose is to provide students this toolbar cheat sheet for quick reference. I tried to make the toolbar and labels pop out of the page by subduing the background image. I feel like this worked ok but after showing it to my test team (my family) I felt that there wasn’t enough “pop.” I solved this problem by adding some drop shadows which I feel does a good job of separating the foreground and background.