This week I focus on how a basic understanding of the Gestalt principles can help create harmonious design and improve the odds that the intended message is conveyed to the learners we design for.

The Theory
The Gestalt theory suggests that when a person looks at an intricate combination of elements, the “whole” is perceived before its “individual” parts. Consequently, the “whole” also becomes more than the sum of its parts. To put it simply, the theory refers to how visual input is perceived by humans.

When was the last time you were so involved in what you were doing that you forgot yourself? You lost track of time? You were ‘in the zone’?

All of us can recall such moments – while reading a book, listening to music, playing a sport, in an online computer game. But I wonder how many of us have felt this during an online course, or inside a classroom when being taught?

Last month our ID team got their feet wet with the learning campaigns in the Age of Empires II – Age of Kings. I’d recommended that all IDs play the game for a few hours to understand how different ‘gamey’ elements are from the conventional ‘interaction’ we use in conventional courseware.

Yes, I’ve not been blogging as regularly as I might have liked to. I’ve been busy with projects – bread and butter.

We’ve always focused on instructional design being essential to the design of courseware. That’s certainly true, it’s the first step to make a learning solution instructionally sound. The next in line is to make it interesting, engaging, interactive. Too many solutions fail at that crucial stage. I’ve seen too many hours of what is commonly termed ‘shovelware’ that result from this failure.