Chunk2

"Well-designed animations may help students learn faster and easier." (wikipedia)

Animation is actually an influential tool when teachers come to explaining difficult, abstract theories to students. Animation provides a vivid introduction of what the item is so that students can have a better understanding. For example, when referring to Newton's law of universal gravitation, one teacher said "it  states that every massive particle in the universe attracts every other massive particle with a force that is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them." while another teacher illustrated it with an animation. Obviously, after watching this animation we can get a conclusion that it is really an helpful tool to facilitate learning. 

We should also know the history of animation in order to make full use of it.

Chunk1

"Photographs of people may or may not help build trust in Web sites".
In my point of view, photographs of people cannot affect my trust towards web sites. I was surprised to find there were lots of photographs of people on universities' web sites when I was searching for admission requirements of my dream university in Canada. Maybe due to cultural difference, I was wondering why they prefer to use such kind of photos and I had never related it to building trust among viewers. I believe all the information university provides on the web site should be authentic, and it must be. Trust is built on the basis of reliable news, data, etc., not upon decorations like photos.

"Ensure that a Web site’s graphics add value and increase the clarity of the information on the site".

Note that use of images should be meaningful, not leading to adverse effect. When designing the classroom anti-distraction system, I used different background images on each page, trying to make it colorful. But after I read this chapter, I realize that too colorful interface may distract users. So I tend to design simple interface for the learning application.

Reference

U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. (2006). Research-Based Web Design & Usability Guidelines.