Upskilling in Canva, Graphic Design, & Readability

Over the past few weeks, I have spent countless hours designing a learning experience using a platform that I am least familiar with, all while trying to incorporate strong learning design, graphic design, and readability principles.

My goal was to use Mayer's 12 Principles of Multimedia Learning to design a microlearning experience for first-time home buyers in Canva. The content was provided by my aunt who is a real estate agent and broker.

Objective: Apply knowledge gained from the next two weeks to design and develop one to two educational artifacts, in collaboration with a real estate professional, that support first-time homebuyers through clear, engaging, and instructionally sound webinar and training materials.

I started with the idea of creating a presentation that my aunt could use while speaking with her clients. After a one-hour collaboration session with her, the direction became much clearer. It was during that conversation that we landed on the theme of putting the pieces together to represent the home buying process. That concept ultimately shaped both the structure and visual design of the artifact.

The final artifact is a microlearning-style presentation that walks first-time home buyers through the process step by step. Each slide represents a piece of the overall journey, gradually building toward a complete picture. This is reinforced visually through segmented blocks, progressive reveals, and a final image that comes together at the end, symbolizing a full understanding of the process.

While I was not able to incorporate all of Mayer’s principles, I intentionally applied several throughout the design.

Principle 1: The Coherence Principle - humans learn best when extraneous, distraction material is not included. (Ohio University Instructional Innovation, 2022)

This guided the overall visual approach. By keeping the design simple, using consistent colors, and repeating key visual elements, I was able to minimize distractions and keep the focus on the content. The gradual reveal of the house image at the end was also used to maintain engagement.

Principle 2: The Signaling Principle - humans learn best when they are shown exactly what to pay attention to on the screen. (Ohio University Instructional Innovation, 2022)

This influenced how I highlight key information. I originally planned to use bolded text, but the font I selected did not offer that option. Instead, I used color highlights to draw attention to important points. While effective, this also showed me the importance of selecting fonts that allow for flexibility, especially when designing for accessibility.

Principle 6: The Segmenting Principle - humans learn best with information is presented in segments, rather than one long continuous stream. (Ohio University Instructional Innovation, 2022)

This helped with structuring of the content. Each step in the home buying process is presented individually, allowing learners to focus on one concept at a time. This not only reduces cognitive overload but also supports a more self-paced experience.

In addition to Mayer’s principles, I focused on readability, accessibility, and overall engagement. Visual elements such as color, typography, and layout play a key role in capturing attention and maintaining learner interest (Instructional Design, n.d.). Using guidance from Harvard’s Digital Accessibility resources (2024), I prioritized clean typography, avoided all caps, and used left-aligned text.

After some trial and error, and even creating a font storyboard (seen below), I selected Tenor Sans as my primary font. It felt both professional and casual, which is what I was going for. However, the lack of formatting options such as bold and italics was a limitation that I would address in a future iteration.

Testing out Various Fonts Within Canva

From a technical standpoint, this project was both fun and challenging. One of the biggest challenges was realizing that on-click animations in Canva only work in presentation mode and not in the public link. Thus, I duplicated the presentation and the specific slides to recreate the intended experience. It was a tedious process, but it pushed me to think more intentionally about how learners would interact with the artifact outside of a live setting.

I also learned a new technique of placing images inside cut-out text. While time-consuming, it ended up being one of the most enjoyable parts of the process and added a strong visual element that aligned with the overall design.

Overall, this project helped me strengthen my graphic design skills, expand my creativity, and get more comfortable applying learning principles in a new tool. It also made me think more about how learners actually interact with materials when they are not in a live session, which changed how I approached parts of the design. The process was definitely fun, but also challenging at times, and it pushed me to be more intentional with my decisions. It also has me considering Canva Premium so I can keep exploring and creating more.

Below is a preview of the microlearning artifact designed to guide first-time home buyers through the process.

References:

Harvard University. (2024). Design for readability. Accessibility.huit.harvard.edu. https://accessibility.huit.harvard.edu/design-readability

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Instructional Design. (n.d.). The intersection of graphic design and instructional design. https://instructionaldesign.com.au/graphicdesign/

Ohio University Instructional Innovation. (2022, September 1). Mayer’s 12 Principles of Multimedia Learning: Instructional Design in Practice. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtdRYYFa-4U