Interface Design for Learning: Mayer's Principles for the design of Multimedia Learning

The following is a summary of the information, principles and research findings presented by Richard E. Mayer on the 1 Sept 2005 at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. For further information on Mayer's work, please see the references at the end of this article.

People learn better when multimedia messages are designed
in ways that are consistent with how the human mind works
and with research-based principles

Research-Based Principles for the Design of Multimedia Messages

Multimedia principle: People learn better from words and pictures than from words alone.

Principles for managing essential processing

Segmenting principle: People learn better when a multimedia lesson is presented in learner-paced segments rather than as a continuous unit.
Pre-training principle: People learn better from a multimedia lesson when they know the names and characteristics of the main concepts.
Modality principle: People learn better from animation and narration than from animation and on-screen text.

Principles for reducing extraneous processing

Coherence principle: People learn better when extraneous words, pictures, and sounds are excluded rather than included.
Redundancy principle: People learn better from animation and narration than from animation, narration, and on on-screen text.
Signaling principle: People learn better when the words include cues about the organization of the presentation.
Spatial contiguity principle: People learn better when corresponding words and pictures are presented near rather than far from each other on the page or screen.
Temporal contiguity principle: People learn better when corresponding words and pictures are presented simultaneously rather than successively.

Principles based on social cues

Personalization principle: People learn better when the words are in conversational style rather than formal style.
Voice principle: People learn better when words are spoken in a standard-accented human voice than in a machine voice or foreign-accented human voice.
Image principle: People do not necessarily learn better from a multimedia lesson when the speaker’s image is added to the screen.

One last principle

Individual differences principle: Design effects are stronger for low-knowledge learners than for high-knowledge learners. Design effects are stronger for high-spatial learners than for low-spatial learners.