what is visual literacy is not!

Thursday, 12 July 2007By Emma Jefferies What Visual Literacy is not! & Jamie SteaneWhat visual literacy is not!

Jamie Steane Head of Visual Communication & Interactive Media Design [email protected]

Emma Jefferies Centre for Design Research, Northumbria University, Newcastle, UK [email protected]

Thursday, 12 July 2007By Emma Jefferies What Visual Literacy is not! & Jamie Steane

Thursday, 12 July 2007By Emma Jefferies What Visual Literacy is not! & Jamie SteaneOverview1.Introduction2.A Visual Experiment3.Influences onSeeing4.Discussion


Thursday, 12 July 2007By Emma Jefferies What Visual Literacy is not! & Jamie Steane1. Introduction


Thursday, 12 July 2007By Emma Jefferies What Visual Literacy is not! & Jamie SteaneWhat is visual literacy?


Thursday, 12 July 2007By Emma Jefferies What Visual Literacy is not! & Jamie SteaneWhat are visual skills?


Thursday, 12 July 2007By Emma Jefferies What Visual Literacy is not! & Jamie SteaneIs visual literacy is a gift?


Thursday, 12 July 2007By Emma Jefferies What Visual Literacy is not! & Jamie SteaneAs a designer do you have amore enhanced visually literacy?(Than the general public)


Thursday, 12 July 2007By Emma Jefferies What Visual Literacy is not! & Jamie Steane2. A Visual ExperimentThese questions have informed a visual experiment study which asks: In the emergent digital age do design students need a more enhanced visually literacy?


Thursday, 12 July 2007By Emma Jefferies What Visual Literacy is not! & Jamie SteaneVisual discrimination Visual Association 1 3 2 4


Thursday, 12 July 2007By Emma Jefferies What Visual Literacy is not! & Jamie SteaneFrom Decoding to Encoding


Thursday, 12 July 2007By Emma Jefferies What Visual Literacy is not! & Jamie SteaneFindingsThere were two significant findings that inform us of What visual literacy is not:


Thursday, 12 July 2007By Emma Jefferies What Visual Literacy is not! & Jamie SteaneNo significant difference between visual association and discrimination skills In the overall population however there were slight variations between contrast, scale and colour


Thursday, 12 July 2007By Emma Jefferies What Visual Literacy is not! & Jamie SteaneFinding 1No significant difference between visual association and discrimination skills in the overall population however there were slight variations between contrast, scale and colourTable: Entire population (SD): paper and digital results

Assessment of visual skillsStandard Deviation (SD)Contrast (SD)Scale (SD)Colour (SD)DigitalPaper Digital Paper Digital Paper Visual discrimination 1.093 1.409 1.888 1.711 1.695 1.869Visual association 1.772 1.707 1.406 1.423 1.805 2.050


Thursday, 12 July 2007By Emma Jefferies What Visual Literacy is not! & Jamie SteaneNo significant difference between the visual levels in design practitioners, students and the general public


Thursday, 12 July 2007By Emma Jefferies What Visual Literacy is not! & Jamie SteaneFinding 2No significant difference between the visual levels in design practitioners, students and the general publicQuestions the Visual Experiments initial assumptions about visual literacy. This finding would suggest: Visual Literacy has no fixed visual knowledgeThere are no fixed levels of visual skills i.e. as we grow as designers we dont develop a more enhanced visual literacy


Thursday, 12 July 2007By Emma Jefferies What Visual Literacy is not! & Jamie Steane3. Influences in terms of seeing


Thursday, 12 July 2007By Emma Jefferies What Visual Literacy is not! & Jamie SteaneIt is not the digital environment that was the influencing factor on design students visual developmentit is the contexts and situations in which a visual is applied.


Thursday, 12 July 2007By Emma Jefferies What Visual Literacy is not! & Jamie Steane3. Influences in terms of seeingWhat does this mean for how we develop student visually? 3 areas to inform our understanding are: Fixed Cross-disciplinary Assessable


Thursday, 12 July 2007By Emma Jefferies What Visual Literacy is not! & Jamie SteaneFixedVisual language is not fixed, but changes in a social contextStreet (1984) shifts from a single literacy to literacies of social practicesTherefore are there are no fixed levels of visual skills just different social contexts requiring different social practices


Thursday, 12 July 2007By Emma Jefferies What Visual Literacy is not! & Jamie SteaneCross-disciplinaryConsider finding 2: Graphic Design and New Media practitioners did not have a higher visual literacy skill base than design studentsDevelopment of visual literacy requires strategies to aid design students appropriate use for their practices. Street, (2001) suggests:We need to start where the people are, with what they already do, and help them to transform their own lives in their own ways for their own purposes rather than to impose our literacy for our own purposes on them, in the process ignoring or despising their existing patterns of literacy and development practices


Thursday, 12 July 2007By Emma Jefferies What Visual Literacy is not! & Jamie SteaneCross-disciplinaryWhat does Cross-disciplinary mean for how design students develop visually?Each design discipline uses alternative visual skills and processes (e.g. types of sketch work) which are appropriate for the media and solutionTo aid students visual development in a design discipline requires:Observe which process enable and limit students to critically engaged, to question their workDevelop Strategies to support critical engagement to enable student transform their learning.


Thursday, 12 July 2007By Emma Jefferies What Visual Literacy is not! & Jamie SteaneAssessableThe process of questioning your own work is personal journey, so how do you assess it?If you take a snapshot of design students visual knowledge would shown an inaccurate picture for two reasons:Assesses what students know rather than how they know Fosters student recognition but not perception


Thursday, 12 July 2007By Emma Jefferies What Visual Literacy is not! & Jamie SteaneAssessableWhat does Assessable mean for how design students develop visually?Encourage students to question and critically engage involves self-assessment of their visual practices and their learning


Thursday, 12 July 2007By Emma Jefferies What Visual Literacy is not! & Jamie SteaneMrs. Hudson


Thursday, 12 July 2007By Emma Jefferies What Visual Literacy is not! & Jamie SteaneDoctor Watson


Thursday, 12 July 2007By Emma Jefferies What Visual Literacy is not! & Jamie SteaneSherlock Holmes


Thursday, 12 July 2007By Emma Jefferies What Visual Literacy is not! & Jamie Steane4. Discussion and SummaryNo fixed skill set. Teaching of visual knowledge alone, will not help design students visual practicesMust recognise that visual literacy is not Fixed, Cross-disciplinary or AssessableVisual literacy can be fostered through methods which aid student to self-assessment their visual practicesDesign educators need to adopt new pedagogic strategies to foster self-assessment in their students visual practicesIn summary, as design educators, we too need to question how we understand, to develop a mature generation of designers, whatever their discipline


Thursday, 12 July 2007By Emma Jefferies What Visual Literacy is not! & Jamie SteaneQuestions?For more information visit:www.emmajefferies.com


*What visual literacy is not! intends to help you understanding visual literacy by stating what we already know it is not, in order to raise awareness and discuss how it can be fostered. This paper come about because visual literacy has had so may attempted of saying what it is over the past years, which have lead to so may practical issues: What skills do I teach? Do I teach design students about the basic visual elements, or help them to develop their own seeing or both, where do you start? Knowledge or how to learning for themselves*Introduction: to raise question and ask you view on visual literacy?Visual Experiment: Describe two finding from a visual experimentInfluences in Terms of Seeing: to inform you of three area the visual experiment about what visual literacy is notDiscussion: Based on they three areas, suggest are to develop visual literacy in design.*I am going to raise question and would like to gain your response*Raise this question and gain a response from the audience, and what you are looking of it is implicit/ tacit/innate, then how do you teach the skill?*If implicit, what are the skills? What skill do we teach designers,*Is a gift or can it be fostered? If so how? Can we assess it?*As a designer do you have more attune visually literacy? If so how have you develop this ability?*An experiment was designed to test the hypothesis that work in a digital practice requires a heightened set of visual skills based on the assumption that there was one way of developing skills and that therefore a students skill set should be clearly defined. *What?The visual experiment was based on a standardised empirical approach devising material to document levels of visual skill development,Visual discrimination: the ability to perceive differences between two or more visual stimuli. (Avgerinou, 2001:xvi) Visual association: the ability to link visuals that display a unifying theme. (Avgerinou, 2001:xvi).

How?The experiment materials shown images 1 and 2 assessed visual discrimination by asking participants to select a suitable contrast of an image in a digital and print-based medium. The experiment materials shown images 3 and 4 asked participants to select a suitable contrast to match the image, provided in a digital and print-based setting, to assess visual association.Experiment material similar to that shown images 1-4 was also used to assess colour and scale to form the visual experiment.

Who?This was conducted with 161 participants within the UK; 73 design students, 48 designers, (30 graphic, 18 new media) and 40 members of the general public. *Peal is ironic peal of bells rather than apple peel**It was excepted that the selection of a suitable match for contrast, colour and scale from the image provided (visual association, see images 3 & 4) would show a narrow stand deviation as matching an image is a less subjective task than selecting one that the participant feels is appropriate (visual discrimination images 1 & 2).

However, as you can see in the table, results for the entire population disproved this hypothesis; the table shows that when matching two images (visual association, figures 3 & 4) for contrast, the standard deviation was wider for paper and digital media than when selecting a suitable contrast for one image (visual discrimination, figures 1 & 2). In the context of scale, however, the prediction proved to be correct, while colour was shown to have no significant difference.

**Finding 2 demonstrated that, in fact, there was no significant difference between the visual literacy levels in design practitioners, students and the general public. Therefore the null hypothesis was accepted and design students do not need more enhanced visually literacy skills.

This findings indicated it was necessary to explore, and understand the visual experiments assumptions of visual literacy which were:had a fixed visual knowledgeLevel of visual skills, and as a designers develop you gain more attune visual literacy

This led to more sophisticated ideas of what visual literacy might be.

*The findings suggested it was not the digital environment that was the influencing factor on design students visual development but the contexts and situations in which visual literacy is applied, the appropriate use.

*What does this mean for how we develop student visually, 3 areas to inform this understand are:Fixed Cross-disciplinary Assessable

For each of these areas I will discuss What does it mean for how design students develop visually?

*Fixed-If we consider visual language, by its nature, to be fixed, design educators should equip students with a fixed skill set; visual reading and writing skills. This visual vocabulary enabled design educators to communicate the basic elements of visual literacy to their students. However it is questionable whether equipping them with a fixed skill set and vocabulary has enabled students to engage with the visual material over different context.

This is in line with datable consider the shift from literacy to literacies. Street (1984:89), led this debate, regards literacy as a continuum from the narrow (and fixed) view, as expressed by students acquisition of a generic reading and writing to literacy as a social practice, (therefore changeable), with focus upon the application of literacy in a context, hence literacies. The visual experiment employs the narrow view, to gauge if there is a single way to develop visual literacy reading skills in design education. This experiment unexpectedly disproved the notion of a single pathway to visual literacy reading skills development with little variation found between design students and practitioners. This implies that visual literacy is a social practice, dependent on how it is applied to individual situations or practices.

Therefore are not development level of visual skills, as the context changes requiring skill to constantly updated. Therefore visual literacy is developed in a social practice and is context dependent.

*This contention in based on considering what Finding 2 from the visual experiment means; that graphic design and new media practitioners did not have a higher skill base than design students.

Nevertheless, their actual visual practice may differ, and it was observed that two thirds of the graphic design practitioners showed a more diverse skills base than their new media counterparts. This can arguably be explained by screen-based designers placing greater emphasis on production tools and more specialist ability to communicate in one medium; implying a narrower visual practice. Conversely, it could be argued that non-specialist graphic designers have greater experience of visual language over different contexts where production skills are secondary to visual thinking.

Optional to say: ( Cleveland (2004:118) contends The change from the use of hot metal for typesetting to photocomposition was an example of metamorphosis ... These skills were not so much associated with the physical use of the machinery, but with the aesthetic choice and placement of type. When the new technology made the operation and flexibility of the physical typesetting practice easier, the compositor became marginalised as their skill base became narrower. )

Taking into account that the development of visual literacy is not solely dependent on vocabulary and skills but also on an strategies to aid design student appropriate use for their design practices. This complies with Streets (2001:221) suggestion, we need to start where the people are, with what they already do, and help them to transform their own lives in their own ways for their own purposes, rather than to impose our literacy for our own purposes on them, in the process ignoring or despising their existing patterns of literacy and development practices. It may be that the earlier approach to defining visual literacy by Bieman (1984) the observation in specific practices was more appropriate. (if help you may wish to repeat this: the definition informs us of what a visually literate person can do, but not what visual literacy is. Bieman,1984)*What does Cross-disciplinary mean for how design students develop visually?

Each design discipline uses alternative visual skills and process (e.g. types of sketch work) which are appropriate for the solution. Drawn on Streets approach, we need to start where the people are, with what they already do, To aid students visual develops in a design discipline requires:

1. OBSERVE which process enable and limit students to critically engaged, to question their work.

TERM: Critical engagement is based on Tony Dunnes (1999:59) understanding of John Deweys (1958) distinction between recognition and perception. Where: To recognition of an object is relating it to what we already know, differs from perception of an object we are actively engaging and question to look at the object in new way and modify previously understanding.

To recognise is not to question and therefore may lead to inaccurate assumptions, where you will not learn and grow, to perception actively question which is promoted through thinking process such as brainstorming and using personas. For example in Multimedia at Northumbria, where students carryout a design document describing the process, this involves competitive analysis of website, personas, Sitemap, site navigation etc. Process which help the students question and see the bigger picture and the message they are trying to communicate.

2. DEVELOP STRATEGIES to support critical engagement to enable student transform their learning .

Defining visual literacy has not help understand design student visual development in a discipline.

*Assessable -The process of questioning your own work is personal journey, how do you assess it?

As has been argued to this point, visual literacy as a language is not fixed but changeable and each design practice has different visual literacies, they own way of seeing and questioning the work.

Taken a snapshot of design students visual knowledge as the visual experiment did, would appear to glean an inaccurate picture for two reasons:

Design educators would merely be able to assess what students know rather than how they know. It would foster student to recognition and not perception. A student to look on the surface (looking) rather than questioning their learning approach, no aiding them to perceptive and see the bigger picture.*Theory into Practices:

Through action research, this understanding was brought into teaching practice with the ideas of aiding students to self- reflect on their visual practices. However, how do first year students know what to look for when reflecting?

Through observe the student and the process which help them question their work, this inform an approach to use personas to aid self reflection use in design crits. There were a model of self development to design students help on what to look for and areas to improve in their visual practices. They can be found at visualengagment.com along with tutors guidance on how to use them,

(if you want you can talk about the benefit you have seen, for example how they can talk in a crit and give and receive feedback).

This method has helped the students to see they work in a new way, encouraging them to re-engage and question their knowledge and skill use. The role of the educator has been slightly altered in that the students may now set their own goals rather than waiting for guidance.

However this persona were only develop for first year design student in Multimedia, and there are other way you could aid them to reflect. *I have argued and shown through a visual experiment that visual literacy can not be considered as having a fixed skill set and that the design educator should be aware of the three influencing factors: Fixed, Cross-disciplinary and Assessable.

These influencing factors would suggest a teaching a fixed skill set of visual elements and principles alone, would be inappropriate; as it will not aid design students visual practices, their process of engaging and applying their visual skills in a context.

Visual literacy cannot simply be taught as discrete knowledge but can be fostered through such methods which aid student to self-assessment their visual practices. However, the research suggests that design educators need to adopt new pedagogy strategies to foster design students self reflection and critical engagement.

To summarise, as design educators we need to questioning what we done understand, or take for granted, can we move forward and create a questioning and maturing generation of designers, whatever their discipline.

*

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