Animation and Text

Have you even been to a three-ring circus and tried to watch all the activities at once? Pretty difficult isn't it? If we're not careful, we present our e-learning students with the same problem.

Our eyes are basically "hard-wired" to respond to different signals in different portions of our visual field. There is simply no way to put together animations and text without having them compete visually. The more lively or the more numerous the animations, the greater the competition. Animations are certainly popular, but pages peppered with motion are nearly impossible to read. Animations may improve your coolness quotient, but they drive your readability index straight into the ground.

So, a few ideas to consider:

• Configure your animation to play just once and then stop. This gives the student an opportunity to view the animation and then read the text without distraction. If desired, offer the student an option to replay the animation.
• Be sure that the user can control the animation and text. Reveal the text at strategic points as the animation plays. The user can than "start and stop" the animation on demand.
  Watch those fancy buttons. Rollovers are great because they can animate when the student takes deliberate action. Buttons that blink or randomly flash are generally a distraction.

In this context, "animation" really refers to motion of any kind that can inherently make a page more difficult to read. This includes scrolling text, blinking text, animated gifs, and flash or director movies. If used correctly, animations can add tremendous depth to your content. If used incorrectly, they can confuse and frustrate your student. Be cautious of using animations when your student needs to read and understand textual information.

Submitted by Steve Conrad, Managing Director for MediaPro