Information Design Journal - Volume 28, Issue 3, 2023

With global school shut-downs due to the pandemic, in 2020 many educational institutions and universities were making use of e-learning like never before, but designing lesson plans for a digital space came with its own set of challenges. In most modern universities, education is still based on traditional learning methods and the teacher-centred physical classrooms. However, with nationwide school closures, teachers had no choice but to turn to e-learning for solutions. Usability evaluation of this kind of platform, therefore, has become essential, and a priority in the application development process. A set of usability evaluation methods have been developed to allow specialists to systematically determine whether graphical interfaces are usable. The usability assessment questionnaire is one of the most used methods and is intended to be answered by end-users of the application. This method is preferred due to its simplicity and low demand for resources.

In this paper, a usability evaluation which combines existing work is presented. Based on existing heuristics, we propose a new questionnaire for evaluating e-learning interface design. In addition, we illustrate two different methodologies for evaluating e-learning interface design, and provide a quantitative rate, Usability Percentage (UP), which complements the usual qualitative data provided by this kind of evaluation.

Typography simplifies and facilitates the information transfer process, and establishes a quick and straightforward connection between text and audience. Combining writing with images provides the basis for creating symbolic relationships in typography. This study intends to define the paradigmatic relationships between visual signs and writing in integrated Persian typographies and English logotypes. In this study Persian and English logotype samples are compared. It is observed that in the Persian sample, logotype letters are often affected by the visual elements; however, only one letter is usually replaced with an image in the English samples.

Colorectal surgery is a common procedure for bowel cancer, with communication of information playing a key role in patient surgery preparation and recovery. Previous research has shown that surgery e-health tools are effective in many medical contexts. With this in mind, an interactive app was developed using an iterative user-centred design and research process and a multi-methods approach. The aim was to enhance communication between patients and medical staff and empower patients throughout their recovery. Results showed the superiority of a mobile app in communicating information when compared to a printed booklet, and to a tablet app variant.

The acquisition of Chinese Characters (CCs) is challenging for learners. Chinese Semantic Radicals (SRs) are semantic components of CCs. The memorization of SRs facilitates the acquisition of CCs when learning Chinese as a second language. This study investigates the effectiveness of Visual Instructions (VIs) in the memorization of SRs by beginners. A preliminary study and three other studies have been conducted. The results have shown that the use of color-coded illustrations helps learners remember the meanings, shapes, and positions of SRs. This could be seen in the significantly increased accuracy of the responses in memory tests. These findings are an important contribution to research on VIs and on the memorization of SRs by beginners.