What Multimedia Principles do Infographics use?

McCue (2021) in his video on infographics, Introduction to infographics with Canva & related multimedia learning principles, highlights several multimedia principles that are used to create effective infographics.

McCue (2020) says that multimedia principles are used to make infographics into learning objects and learning activities. The main idea of using multimedia principles in creating infographics is that people learn from words and pictures rather than from words alone. These multimedia principles are signaling principle, spatial and temporal contiguity principle, coherence principle, and self-explanation principle.

  • Signaling principle

When cues are added to the infographic, it becomes easier to understand. It is a method of reducing cognitive load by highlighting the most important information.

Figure 1: An infographic showing the signaling principle (DeBell, 2020)

  • Spatial and temporal contiguity principle

It is easier to learn when the student can easily match the words with the corresponding pictures.

  • Coherence principle

The principle states that it is easier to learn when extraneous material is excluded from the infographic.

  • Self-explanation principle

An effective approach is that people will learn more effectively when they generate their own self explanation during learning. An infographic helps learners to seek self-explanations by allowing them to select information, make logical connections, and find graphical representation of the information.

In conclusion, infographics elucidate complex information in a clear and concise manner. They are multimedia tools used in the learning process. Being multimedia tools, infographics use several multimedia principles to enable the learning process to take place.

References

DeBell, A. (2020). How to use Mayer’s 12 principles of multimedia [Examples Included]. Water bear learning. https://waterbearlearning.com/mayers-principles-multimedia-learning/

McCue, R. (2021, February 20). Introduction to infographics with Canva & related multimedia learning principles [MP4]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1k3deWbw2c