Engaging content - infographic / diagram

Tool selection matrix  |  Snagit | PowerPoint  |  FLO tools | Digital Content Producer 

An infographic or diagram is a visual way of representing information through an image, or a combination of image and text. 

As background, you may like to read the article Every picture tells a story... for information about how we process image, what to look for in an image, and more.

These introductions to basics of graphic design may also be useful:

Good practice guides and tip sheets

Good practice guides and tip sheets have been developed to support quality in both curriculum design and teaching practice. Good practice guides provide a pedagogical overview and tip sheets provide you with practical strategies and ideas for implementation. Links to engaging content-related resources are provided below. 

Design principles for creating engaging digital content | Sourcing and creating digital content


Snagit icon

Snagit

Snagit is screen capture and basic image editing software that you can use to capture on-screen images and record short videos. It has tools you can use to easily enhance your screen-captured images with visual effects, or highlight important information with Snagit’s mark-up tools. You can also use Snagit to resize and annotate images from other sources. Download on University computers via the IDS Support Portal. Home-use licences are available (request via Service One). Snagit is available for both Mac and Windows.
Good for

  • Simple diagrams and graphics where you want to overlay text and image over content that you have screen captured
  • Resizing images (from any source)
Useful features

  • Designed for capturing and annotating screenshots 
  • Extensive editing ability, which can be used on images from any source 
  • Tools, libraries and styles inbuilt to easily add lines/arrows, shapes, stamps, text etc 
  • Tools that allow editing of an image: select areas, erase, smart move 
  • Tools to annotate, including step tool 
  • Crop and resize images, add image effects, capture information
  • Easy capture of software menus 

Limitations

  • Limited drawing tools for creating diagrams from scratch
  • Can apply colour filters but doesn’t have tools to enhance/adjust colour balance 

 Tips
  • Can open any image file and annotate/edit 
  • Panoramic or scrolling capture types allows you to capture items that don’t fit on one screen 

Help resources




PowerPoint icon

PowerPoint

Good for

  • Creation of wide range of infographic/diagram content ranging from simple to complex visuals, including timelines, lifecycles, system or process graphics, instructional graphics, and more
Useful features

  • Familiar environment
  • Extensive drawing tools, shapes, lines, icons, Smart Art libraries 
  • Grids, guides, grouping, alignment and item layering and ordering
  • Insert and adjust images (crop, colour adjust) 
  • Preset designs, object effects and colour themes 
  • Extensive control over properties of elements 
Tips

  • Use page setup to select most appropriate size and orientation of 'slides' for your diagram (eg portrait, A4) to make the graphic useable in printed and electronic formats 
  • Use export function to save all slides or specific slides as image files or PDFs 
  • Select an item or group and use right click > save as image (instead of saving whole slide) 
  • Group components of a diagram 
Help resources

  • Microsoft Office has a large amount of training and help resources and there are many third party help resources, how-to guides, videos, tutorials that can be found by searching the web
  • (Note the linked Microsoft page is for windows users. The Mac PowerPoint software is so similar that these resources are still useful to Mac users. Mac help resources are also available)
  • Google 'powerpoint infographics how to' for videos, instructions etc




FLO tools: Lesson   Quiz   Active quiz   Choice   Feedback   Book   Page   Glossary

FLO tools cannot be used create diagrams/images but can be used to deliver/publish images to students.

Useful features

  • Images can be inserted anywhere within FLO tools wherever the HTML editor is available 
Cautions

  • Ensure images have appropriate copyright and are properly attributed 
  • When including images in quiz questions, ensure the image filename and ALT tags don’t give away the question answer 
Tips

  • Resize image to appropriate pixel dimensions before inserting (use Snagit, or Preview on Mac OS)  
Help resources




Digital Content Producer iconDigital Content Producer

The Digital Content Producer is a highly talented member of the Online Learning Team in the Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching, who has an extensive skillset with multimedia and digital content, and can work with you on the development of complex digital learning resources.

If your needs are not met by the existing tools or the resource you are looking to create is complex in some way, please speak with the Learning Designer in your college about your needs as there is some capacity for digital content production for learning and teaching.

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