Most organizations and clients expect instructional designers and developers to produce visually rich and professional-looking learning deliverables—without the benefit of a dedicated illustrator or animator on the project. Fortunately, with just a little knowledge of visual principles, coupled with the power of modern graphic and animation tools, you can dramatically improve the look and feel of your learning deliverables—without using a dedicated expert. More importantly, by combining visual and instructional principles appropriately, you can ensure your graphics and animations will enhance learning effectiveness.

This eBook will teach you the importance of knowing your audience—including knowing how to meet the needs of learners with disabilities, why visual consistency is important to learning, and when (and when not) to use graphics and animations. You’ll learn about basic and advanced graphic and animation tools, how to save time with templates, how to use fonts as graphics, how to use Flash for animations even if you plan to deliver animations in HTML5, and much, much more. The topics covered include:

  • Graphics, animations, and instructional design
  • Selecting graphics
  • Designing or modifying graphics
  • Designing animations
  • Fonts and colors
  • Tools for graphics
  • Tools for animations