When I started this course, I don’t think I had ever considered “good design” and if I was asked about its purpose I would most likely say “it makes learning more appetizing”. Over this semester, my perspective has shifted greatly. I have come to see that design is not just cosmetic, rather it is necessary for accessibility and equity. I understand now that the primary job of “good design” is to support the learner. Whether the subject is addition or advanced calculus, the goal of design remains the same: remove barriers, reduce cognitive load and present information in a way that the learner can succeed with the material.
Revisiting my challenges and posts, I can see my perspective shift within my coursework as the semester progresses. Early on in my substantive posts about PheT simulations and the stock market video, I put heavy emphasis on how multimedia principles are applied to make complex topics less intimidating. For example, I connected Merrill’s first principle and Mayer’s Modality, Coherence and Contiguity principles to help learners participate in science rather than just learn about it. For the investing video, I highlighted how conversational tone and analogies used the Personalization principle to make abstract concepts feel relatable. At this point, I still was primarily seeing design as a tool to make content easier to understand.
I think the turning point was our module on accessibility and the UDL. The concept that has stuck with me the most throughout this course was Kat Holmes idea of disability. She explains how disability is a mismatch between a person and their environment. This prompted me to think about design in what I learn and what I teach as a tennis coach and how “good design” is a responsibility of the instructor rather than a suggestion. Furthermore, I now coach with the intent to reduce barriers as I understand these lessons are filled with patrons of different strengths, bodies and learning preferences. When I deliberately demo skills, verbally explain them, and give players multiple ways to think about their learning, I’m not just making learning more engaging, I’m using multiple means of representation and action in order to reduce barriers. This is when I realized that the material was beginning to click. When I recognized myself using multimedia principles in my own life, I was considering how I can tailor the environment to the learner instead of expecting the learner to fit the environment.
You can see this same progression when examining my projects. In the early stages, particularly the tennis scoring comic, I approached design with the mindset of making the information that I was presenting fun and visually appealing. I focused on humour, visuals and a friendly mascot because I wanted beginners to feel less intimidated when tackling tennis scoring. This was a good starting point, however I had the wrong mindset when designing my comic. My goal at the time was engagement, however when I reflected on the peer feedback I realized that the comic wasn’t supposed to be entertaining, it had to function as an accessible learning tool. Applying Mayer’s Multimedia for challenge A, the Coherence and Personalization principles became less about “making it look nice” and more about reducing confusion for a learner who may already feel overwhelmed.
This shift became increasingly evident in Challenge B. When creating our EAFC video series, Zikora and I originally tried to include as many gameplay tips as possible. Recording and editing the videos quickly revealed that this was not possible as density leads to cognitive overload, especially in a one minute format. Applying backward design, the ADDIE model and Mayer’s principles helped us strip the content to its essentials and create an accessible introduction to the game. Our decisions to include controller overlays, gameplay clips and conversational narration were accessibility choices aimed to reduce load and support our learners.
Finally, Challenge C represents the full extent of my growth in this course. Zikora’s and my OER was the first project that we worked on where accessibility wasn’t a consideration, but a necessity. For example, we used ADDIE from the start to help us identify our audience’s needs, especially stress, cognitive overload and ineffective study strategies. This allowed us to structure the resource into multiple segmented webpages and remove unnecessary information using Mayer’s coherence principle. Challenge C also presented a major limitation of multimedia. When designed intentionally multimedia reduces cognitive load, but if not implemented correctly it can become a barrier being both distracting and overwhelming.
Overall, all three challenges provide clear evidence of my growth in this course. They show my intentions growing from designing for engagement to designing for equity. I now know that effective multimedia design is not about more information, it is about intentionally constructing learning environments that provide a platform for all learners to succeed. This shift from aesthetic to accessibility is the most valuable takeaway I have from this course. In the future I will look to use it in future coaching, academic work and any learning resources I create.