Techniques of Effective Instructions
Following instructions can require heavy cognitive load and effort for a learner, especially when performing unfamiliar, complicated tasks [198, 197]. Therefore, tutorial authors have to carefully provide concise, effective instructions that can be interpreted by a follower efficiently. The goal is to provide minimal instructional content that includes essential information but retain learners’ attention [28]. A set of techniques has been developed and widely used in technical and everyday instructions. As Agrawala et al. [4] suggested, formulating design principles for effective visualiza- tions requires examining successful hand-designed examples. In this section, we discuss common techniques found in static and video tutorials.
Visual Annotations
To help learners quickly identify key information, visual annotations are commonly used. Table 2.1 shows a list of annotation techniques in practices that we summarized from book material for static tutorials [153, 57, 92, 36, 209], but some of these techniques are often applied in video tutorials (see Table 2.2). These visual elements are effective for indicating the movement of action or objects (via arrows or paths), identify important parts (via highlights), present the details and overview (via call-outs), and provide additional messages such as a warning (via icons or text).
To present annotations, Tufte [209] described the importance of layering information: “Among the most powerful devices for reducing noise and enriching the content of displays is the technique of layering and separation, visually stratifying various aspects of the data.” Color, for example, is effective for separating content. Shown in Table 2.1, motion arrows are presented in red, paths are in a darker gray color, and the key components are highlighted in orange or white. The design goal is to help learners efficiently capture important actions and tips. Figure 2.3 shows another example of using colors to separate abstract information. In this exploded diagram of the Hubble Space Telescope, the labels or text annotations are in black, with blue lines pointed to individual parts, that differentiate from the machine components presented in green.
Figure 2.3: Color can differentiate between annotation (labels in black) and annotated information (parts in green in this diagram1).
1 Image by AndrewBuck (Own work), “Exploded diagram of the Hubble Space Telescope”, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0
Technique Example Intention
Table 2.1: A list of annotation techniques that are often used to provide instructions. Examples are selected from stroller instructions [34]. Reproduced with permission.
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