A well-crafted video is a powerful storytelling tool. Refining an expert’s knowledge through the lens of intentional instructional design can make that knowledge even more accessible.

Complex processes require thoughtful design choices to illustrate them effectively. In this video, in a course on creating different fermented products, the faculty member explains, while concise, clear illustrations provide visual impact.

In scientific and technical fields, visuals can be just as critical as what the author is saying. Adding high-quality graphic elements may be the difference between a student being able to connect the content to their larger body of knowledge. Similarly, good graphics will help with retention, and enable the student to perform the assessment tasks that we will ask of them.

While a dedicated studio can produce a high-quality video, sometimes what we want to demonstrate isn’t amenable to that type of environment. In this video, the faculty is demonstrating a lab activity that the students will perform on their own. We combined on-location capture with integration of a flowchart and graph, to provide a similar experience to what the students would have seen in the lab. Both the flowchart and graph were also provided as standalone handouts, so they could be used for later reference.

Sometimes, a video alone is not enough. On this page, the faculty author wanted to include a lot more information than would reasonably fit in an easy-to-digest video. So, we compromised by adding a reading section to the page, which gave a deeper background that students could dig into, or not, depending on their level of interest in the material. However, the content needed to complete the assessments was all within the video.

Even complex medical topics can be improved with the right visuals. For this course, having a skilled medical illustrator available to collaborate with the in-house animation team was essential to creating graphic elements that were both impactful and accurate.