Experimental Study On The Design Rules Of Text Of Multimedia Interfaces

With the development of education informatization,multimedia learning materials are becoming the important form of teaching content.The quality of the multimedia learning materials will affect the effectiveness of information teaching directly.At the same time,as the modern information teaching idea is changed from the "technology-centered" to "learner-centered" gradually,people pay more attention to the effective design and teaching application of multimedia learning materials.Professor You Ze-qing who is a Chinese famous educational technology expert proposed and created theoretical system of "Linguistics for Multimedia Design(LMD)",the purpose was to provide some rules to follow for the design,development and application of multimedia teaching materials(system)and to enhance the effectiveness of information teaching.LMD is an innovative theory which was born and growing up in Chinese mainland.And it is a new design theory in the information age and is an important research area of educational technology.LMD has important application value.However,the present study of LMD is still in its early stages.The theory framework,the research contents,the research methods and the relations with other correlational researches need to be explored and improved.Therefore,the study selected "text" that the most common expression of information as the main line and explored the effective design of text of multimedia interfaces.LMD was the study framework,the experimental method was the main study method and college students and middle school students were the study objects.The aim of the study was to provide useful reference for framework,thoughts and methods of the following researches.At the same time,the design rules of text based on experiments was useful for the design and teaching application of multimedia interfaces.The main contents of this research were as follows:The design model of text of multimedia interfaces was proposed based on the theories of working memory,cognitive load,dual channel,multimedia learning,the framework of LMD and the research approaches of visual language.The design model included three levels and four aspects.The three levels were the level of cognitive psychology,the level of grammar and the level of semantics and pragmatics.The four aspects were the basic attributes of text,the combination of text and other types of media,study clues and interactive function.The design model of text was systematic and deductive.The design model of other types of media such as graphics and sound could be deduced by the design model of text.Based on the design model of text of multimedia interfaces,the study took into account displaying devices,the difficulty of teaching content,types of knowledge,age of learners,explored the basic attributes of text,the combination of text and other types of media,study clues and interactive function by the experimental method.Several design rules of text were summed up:(1)Under the conditon of two different displaying devices(computer screen and iPad),the font size of text of multimedia interfaces should be moderate.The text No.18 and the text No.24 are best for learners to learn.The text smaller than No.12 and larger than No.36 should be avoided to use.(2)Under the conditon of two different displaying devices(computer screen and iPad),three fonts of text(Song typeface,Kai typeface,Hei typeface)have little impact on the visual cognitive process and the learning effects of learners.The designers can choose suitable fonts according to the teaching contents and the style of multimedia interfaces.(3)Under the conditons of five font sizes of text(No.12,No.18,No.24,No.28,No.36)and three fonts of text(Song typeface,Kai typeface,Hei typeface),two different displaying devices(computer screen and iPad)have little impact on the visual cognitive process and the learning effects of learners.The designers can choose suitable displaying devices according to the developing technologies,the existing conditions and the occasions.(4)Without sacrificing readability of text,the artistic style of interactive text and content text through the coordination between the basic attributes such as font,font size,color and position can effectively guide the learners’ learning path,meet the aesthetic needs of learners,attract the visual attention of learners and improve the learning effect of learners when the content text is difficult.(5)For declarative knowledge,the video should have subtitles.Full subtitles consistent with commentary of video will help learners to get more quantity of learning and summary of subtitles consistent with the important and difficult points will help learners to get better quality of learning.For procedural knowledge,the video should have summary of subtitles.Summary of subtitles will help learners to get more quantity and better quality of learning.At the same time,full subtitles should be avoided because it will interfere with learning.(6)"Internal+external" clues is the best design of clues and internal clues is the medium and external clues is the worst.(7)When choosing the interaction of multimedia learning materials,the following points should be understood:For college students,touch interaction is better.But for middle school students,there is little difference of learning effects between touch interaction and mouse interaction.For combining eye movement experiments and cognitive behavior experiments,the study explored the effect on the visual cognitive process of learners from visual psychology,revealed the close relationship between eye movement data and learning effect.The cognitive processing mechanism of learners in the multimedia context was reflected.The study of LMD was from dual perspective of perception and cognition based on the combination between online method(eye movement experiments)and offline method(cognitive behavior experiments).A new kind of research paradigm was set up.