CEPD · Module 2 — Visual and information design for screens
Visibility of status, recognition over recall, error prevention and consistency, applied to course chrome and gates.
About 18 min
Practice in the lesson player
Sorting, matching, quizzes, and the module gate stay behind a free account so scored answers are not public. The teaching notes below are the same cited curriculum.
01
Visibility of system status: Learners always know where they are, what happened and what is next.
Recognition rather than recall: Options and information stay visible; learners do not memorise across screens.
Error prevention: Design so mistakes in the interface cannot happen, such as disabling Submit until an option is chosen.
Consistency and standards: The same action looks and works the same everywhere.
02
A module gate is the screen learners care most about. Visibility: the score and the pass mark appear on the same screen as the result. Recognition: the case stays on screen while they answer. Error prevention: Submit stays disabled until every item is answered, and a confirmation shows unanswered items. If the only way to learn a gate score is to email support, the gate has a production defect.
03
Heuristic reviews find many problems, but not all. Nielsen's well-known guidance is that small qualitative usability tests (around five users) find most of the serious problems in one round, and that several small rounds after fixes are better than one large test. For courses: watch five real learners use the alpha build on their own devices, in both languages, and say nothing. Note where they hesitate. Fix, then test again at beta.
04
Book five learners from the target audience for 10 minutes each with your next alpha. Write down every hesitation. Add the top three fixes to your pattern sheet as rules.