MAYER'S 12 PRINCIPLES OF MULTIMEDIA DESIGN
1) THE MULTIMEDIA PRINCIPLE
It is well known that students learn better from words and pictures than just words alone, so we created a simulated environment where the student is free to make mistakes without any real-world consequences. The simulated environment relies heavily on pictures with the occasional word to help the learner better understand what they are seeing.
7) INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES
The simulation is adaptive and as such the difficulty level adapts to meet the needs of the individual learner.
2) SPATIAL CONTIGUITY
According to Mayer, students learn better when information is presented near rather than far on the screen. To take this into account, all relevant terminology is aligned with graphics and is not hard for the user to locate.
8) SIGNALING
Visualization of terms as well as verbal cues from the instructor will act as signals to the learner, letting them know what the main ideas are.
3) TEMPORAL CONTIGUITY
To account for this principle, care was taken with the timing of narration and when corresponding graphics appear on the screen.
9) PERSONALIZATION
The simulator will ask the student's name and use personal pronouns to engage the learner.
4) COHERENCE
Weeding was used to ensure extraneous information was not included in the presentation.
10) HUMAN VOICE
The simulation will incorporate a human voice when interacting with the learner as Mayer suggests students learn better when a human voice is used for narration.
5) MODALITY
Words presented are kept to a minimum and most information is conveyed in an auditory manner.
11) PACING
The simulation is not timed and as such will not go faster then a pace the learner is comfortable with. Additionally, the learner is able to control the pacing of the informational videos by pausing the presentation.
6) REDUNDANCY
Students tend to learn better from animation and narration then animation, narration, and on-screen text. To account for this, the text presented on screen during the simulated experience will be minimal and consist mostly of vocabulary terminology. Instructions will be conveyed in an auditory manner.
12) CONCEPTS FIRST
Both the video and simulation will present an outline in the form of learning objectives to the learner. The simulation will gratly parallel the content provided by the learner, so while the individual is assumed to have an understanding of terms, the overview will ensure the outline is fresh.
HAVE MORE QUESTIONS ABOUT MAYER?
Check out this article about him by Clark, Yates, Early, & Moulton: Cognitive Load Theory & Multimedia Design
STILL NOT SATISFIED?
Check out his design principles book!