---
title: Learning by Visuals
description: When it comes to learning, external representations, aka visualizations, have always been valuable tools to students.
---

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# [Learning by Visuals](https://www.proctorfree.com/news/learning-visuals)

 Written by [Mike Murphy](https://www.proctorfree.com/news/author/mike-murphy) | Feb 20, 2015 5:00:00 AM

When it comes to learning, external representations, aka visualizations, have always been valuable tools to students. Visualizations play a key role in all learning.

So why are visuals important?

According to [The Theory and Practice of Online Education](http://dspace.uces.edu.ar:8180/xmlui/bitstream/handle/123456789/586/Theory%20and%20Practice%20of%20online%20learning.pdf?sequence=1): Students learn better from words and graphics or pictures than from words alone. There is the *The Spatial contiguity principle, *where students learn better when corresponding words and pictures are presented near rather than far from each other on the page or screen. The* Temporal contiguity principle, *where students learn better when corresponding words and pictures are presented simultaneously rather than successively. Lastly, The* Redundancy principle, *where people have only limited capacity to process visual and auditory material presented simultaneously; therefore, students learn better from graphics and narration than from a combination of other materials.

## So what visuals should you put in your online class?

- Visuals that emphasize the critical details relevant to learning are most effective.
- Simple line drawings, tend to be superior to photographs or more realistic drawings depending on the learning task.
- Of course graphics, which can increase the motivation of users to attend, prompt perception, and aid recall, and assist in the development of higher order thinking and concept formation. 
    - Graphics: Pictures, Illustrations, Charts, Diagrams, Graphs, and Models. 
          - Diagrams, Charts and graphs should require the learner to process the information given and to understand certain conventions.
          - Graphics should guide the student
- Captions on Photos and Illustrations. 
    - Increase learning by focusing attention on appropriate elements of illustrations.
- Animations
- Inforgraphics

([reference](http://dspace.uces.edu.ar:8180/xmlui/bitstream/handle/123456789/586/Theory%20and%20Practice%20of%20online%20learning.pdf?sequence=1))

Overall, many theories support the importance of visualizations as a complement to learning. Incorporating visuals in online courses is both beneficial to the students, as well as the course, and has a profound impact on how students perceive information, learn, and judge usability. More articles regarding visuals in online courses can be found [here](http://mgleeson.edublogs.org/2013/07/14/2760/) and [here](http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/winter134/david_glore134.html).

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