Bad design is inaccessibility
How Steve Jobs presented ideas simply
Scott McLeod has argued that ‘Bad design is inaccessibility’. If we don’t deliberately design learning materials to play nicely with our students’ cognitive load then we most disadvantage those with additional learning needs. I’m going to use Steve Jobs’ presentation introducing the iphone in 2007 (which is worth watching all the way through) as an example of good and accessible design to illustrate McLeod’s point.
One idea, One slide
According to McLeod ‘If I don’t need to think it then I don’t need to see it’. The key to designing learning for accessibility is reducing the number of elements on-screen or on-sheet to the most important ones possible. This reduces ‘cognitive drag’.
Here is an example from Jobs’ presentation. He used an incredibly simple format with each slide only communicating one idea.
Jobs could have made a very busy and distracting slide to explain this complex topic, but he didn’t. Here is an example of a busy slide I created to illustrate the point!
(This is not the slide Jobs used, but I’ve created it to show what a busier version of Jobs’ slide could look like!)
Consistency
Jobs’ presentation is consistent in terms of design. The icons used are similarly designed while the formatting and font are consistent.
Present step-by-step then combine
Jobs also introduced each part of the iphone individually then put it all together. Again, this helps maximise the amount of cognitive load that is spent on understanding what the iphone is. Once we have explained the parts individually we can then combine them in the knowledge that it won’t overload the audience.
Design, and teaching, is about making trade-offs. When we design information for our students we can be mindful of these trade-offs!