Design Principles Database

Dip into expert knowledge on learning design at the design principles database:
The Design Principles Database (DPD) "is a place for you to learn from the wisdom gained by dozens of researchers who have designed, enacted with students, and studied the use of technology for learning. This wisdom is translated in the DPD into pedagogical Design Principles".

• "browse or search the dpd for design principles exemplified by features from educational technologies."


• "Follow our step by step model to design a new learning environment using the DPD. Your outcome would be a design document and a mock-up of your environment, which you’ll be able to further use for making it come alive."

The DPD is an international effort lead by Yael Kali (Israel Institute of Technology) and Marcia Linn (University of California, Berkley). Yael Kali will be in Australia in 2009, as a Visiting Scholar at the CoCo Research Centre, University of Sydney where she'll be furthering her research into design knowledge.

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'Print' magazine - for the thinking designer

As designers, how can we but revel in that glossy eye-candy rich artifact: the design magazine. We're looking for fun, information, inspiration, the new, the bold, the beautiful and a font of fabulous ideas. So is it me, or does it feel like instead we're bombarded with a stream of photoshop tutorials, technology ads, free cds, buzz-word infiltrated articles and layouts that are "so hip" its hard to read the text?

There's certainly nothing wrong with tutorials and product reviews, but what about when you're looking for something more? And the conspicuously self-indulgent boys club approach of some mags I could certainly do without.

After a relentless search (in the area of English-language graphic and digital design) I landed on what I would call the "thinking designer's magazine".

It's a multiple award winning publication, which is no surprise, as it maintains truly superb journalistic quality (the kind you'd expect from a top news source like the New York Times), and it's not just the new, narrow and fluffy, but the expansive, eclectic, essential and serendipitous. It's the first magazine I want to devour slowly from cover to soft matte cover.

It's called "Print - Design Culture Place" and it's certainly not new.  Print has been in print since 1940, and in 2008  it's fun, visually satisfying, intelligent and even authentic. It never screams try-hard or self-consciously-trendy, but smart, and the layout is (wait for it) well designed! That means it's literally usable, not just eye-catching. It's comfortable and pleasurable to read and to view.

There are plenty of pictures, but also plenty of content.

With topics as irresistible as "Design under pressure - how conflict influences design" featuring book covers, comics, signage and mural work in Iraq, Northern Ireland, India, and Cuba, it's not exactly that same review of the top 10 UK studios.

The June issue featured European design, but again, not the same-old studio tour. This time it's "cute" in Iceland, political cartooning in Turkey and board game design in Germany along with tidbits on fonts, retro movie posters, business comics, album art and even those "Little Golden Books" you remember from childhood. You get the picture - it's not a one-note magazine.

And if you're thinking "but it's print, and I work in digital" don't forget that all that print these days is done digitally and inspiration will always come from everywhere. But they also have a regular segment titled "Desktop" that focuses on animation, flash, software and other digital domains. If you want just website reviews, you will need to look elsewhere, but there is always the web for that. I'm not saying this will be the only design magazine on your shelf, but it could end up being the best one. Although Print is sometimes dubbed "America's graphic design magazine" it takes an extremely international view. Overseas subscriptions are available (take it off your taxes).

HOW is another solid design magazine, and perhaps unsurprisingly, is put out by the same publisher (no, I am not getting any payouts from F+W, unfortunately). HOW focuses more on career and practicalities with loads of information for the freelance designer and art director. I know there are more great design mags out there, so feel free to drop a note on your favorite ones, where they're published, and why they're particularly inspiring.




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The un-digital experience

We graze in digital vapor all day, but there's plenty we can't let go of in the analog world. The crispy satisfaction of a magazine, the "new smell" that runs along the inside spine of a book, the scratchy novelty of an old recording, or the unpredictability of a limited edition screen print. Let's face it, life full-digital lacks a luster and a good 200,000 years of humanity. So let's hear it for the guys at Field Design who've put together a limited edition tribute to the analog dubbed "The Radio Post".  If you're handy at paper-based letter writing (remember that?), and can scrounge up a postage stamp, you can get a hold of a copy for free...

If you haven't picked up the latest issue of Print magazine, then you may not have found out about this quiet love-labour enterprise: The Radio Post.

"Delicious analogue things: hand-printed photographs, valve amps, love letters, Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh, glaciers, cod & chips, Harold Lloyd's stunts, letterpressed books and car engines you can fix with a spanner. All these things, as Ruttger Hauter's Roy said in Blade Runner, will be lost in time - like tears in rain. And hey, we love progress and we love our computers and pdfs and sms and all that, but while the beautiful tactile and faulted nature of these analogue things ebbs away, we are publishing the Radio Post as a little salute, a tip of the cap, to anything related to those beautiful objects and processes. "

And they don't disappoint. I thought my tardy little Aussie postcard, picturing an old sewing machine, would arrive too late but to my surprise I got the sheer delight of a lovely brown envelope in my mailbox, double hand stamped and graced with a cheerful handwritten note. I can't explain why, but at that instant in time, as I unsealed the letter, I felt more connected across the great oceans than I ever have with the instantaneous connectivity of email or chat. Irrational perhaps, but magical it was. In that Christmas morning kind of a way.

A testament to excellent design, this little publication has the satisfactory feel of something both new and recycled, modern and old, scratchy and elegant. Beautifully printed, and comfortable to use, it's a delight. It's a complete designed experience from the slow moment you set aside to scratch your request onto a postcard, to the day it surprises you in your mailbox and moves through your hands. Article topics range from black and white photo booths and lighthouses to Toe Rag Studios, a real recording studio built almost exclusively with pre-60's equipment.

A copy of this publication will be sent free to anyone who asks for one via postcard or letter (while stocks last).

Please send these requests (don't forget your address - and if you like, an appropriate Irish or Danish stamp) to:

The Radio Post
Repubikken Buliding,
Vesterbrogade 24b - 2.Sal,
1620 Copenhagen V,
Denmark

Printing of the Radio Post is generously spoonsored by Craftprint, Dublin.
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Instructional video example

Quickie: Here's a nice example of high quality instructional Flash video put out by an educational institution. This video-based flash site helps non-technical academics learn how to use audio visual teaching equipment easily. The information is in comfortable and navigable bite-size chunks, and the use of narrated dual-video make these how-to's fun and easy to follow (it's like airline safety demos made interactive! - well not quite). Controls are comprehensive without being obtrusive, instructions are kept short, and an undistracting text alternative to the narration is provided. My only usability note is that the image dissolves within the menu items can make it a bit hard to focus on what you're looking for, and loss of the back button always takes a second to integrate. But subtleties aside, it works swimmingly. See A/V Help videos at the University of Sydney to check it out. >> Read more...

Rapid E-learning

When you want to build an online teaching tool fast, but you don't have a design and development team, you might turn to ready-made tools for the job, like Adobe Captivate, and you'll probably call it "Rapid E-learning". Business, in particular, loves the promise of anything that sounds fast and cheap, so buzzwords like "Rapid E-learning" take off like wildfire. This quick and dirty approach, although clearly inadequate on its own for sophisticated learning programs, can hit the spot for smaller chunks of training and for giving, what would otherwise be a dusty slide presentation, that extra bit of life in an online environment. It also brings certain valuable instructional approaches like the interactive case-study into the hands of the masses.

Guest writer, Heather Johnson, gives us a peek into "Rapid E-learning"...

Rapid E-Learning Rapidly Catching On

The more you get done in less time, the more productive you are; with productivity being directly proportional to profits, it's no wonder that there's a massive market for rapid e-learning courses. Lessons or training sessions can be put together in a matter of weeks and packaged and sold to both educational institutions and corporate houses alike.

Rapid e-learning courses are less like textbooks and are more like PowerPoint presentations, only more sophisticated in the way they look and feel. They're designed mainly as a platform for Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to provide training in the short term - rather than deliver presentations at diverse geographical locations, copies of the e-learning material is dispatched wherever needed.

To be effective and taken seriously, rapid e-learning lessons need to be packaged well.

• The tools of the trade (the environment) must be conducive to easy use by even technically-challenged SMEs who are responsible for framing the curricula and elaborating the course content.
• The colors and fonts used throughout the pages of the lesson must be consistent and make for easy reading.
• It's important to correlate the visual appeal of the e-learning development environment to the subject being discussed. Background colors and templates that are loud and colorful do not go hand in hand with a serious subject.
  
• Take care to avoid overdressing your environment to the extent that the topic being discussed is lost among the myriad visual effects.
• Include graphics that are of good quality to maintain that professional overall look.
• They must include options to create templates, offer self-assessment tests and quizzes, and allow audio and video to be recorded.
• Rapid e-learning encompasses both synchronous and asynchronous sessions, with the former being used for live webcasts and video conferences.

The very purpose of rapid e-learning courses is to be able to create effective online training sessions in a very short period of time. While critics of the process denounce it citing something similar to the adage about haste making waste, there are numerous applications where rapidly developed e-learning courses have allowed for a cost-saving transition away from inefficient face-to-face training approaches.

This article is contributed by Heather Johnson, who regularly writes on ITT Tech Reviews. She invites your questions and writing job opportunities at her personal email address: heatherjohnson2323 at gmail dot com.
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