Four Ways to Reduce Cognitive Load on VideoPals

VideoPals utilizes many digital platforms that may be overwhelming for young users. Beyond the academic lessons, students share ideas through video, instant messaging, live-chats, email, and online communities. The many modes of communication present a challenge to ensure the site’s navigational ease and usability. In order to reduce extraneous cognitive load and maximize meaningful learning, VideoPals will adopt these four methods:

Pretraining: Upon initial registration, both students and teachers will be given an instructional tutorial on how to navigate and use the site. Familiarity with the site should minimize initial frustrations and acclimations, thereby allowing users to enjoy and maximize their VideoPals experience.

Signaling: Cues reduce extraneous processing, so that the user is assisted in making the next step. The site’s navigation will prompt the user toward the next probable action.

Aligning: To apply the spatial contiguity theory, printed words and associated pictures will be positioned close to one another. The site will box off sections (ie. News, Email, My Profile) to separate and clearly identify the various applications.

Eliminating Redundancy: On some websites, there are sometimes many ways of completing the same task. On Microsoft programs, a person can use a short-cut key, press an icon, or select from the FILE menu, all just to print. This can be confusing for young users. On the VideoPals site, the navigation will be user friendly and simple by reducing task-based redundancies.

Reference: Mayer, R.E., & Morena R.(2003). Nine Ways to Reduce Cognitive Load in Multimedia Learning. Educational Psychologist, 43-52.