Robert Berkovitz was always aware of the structural and ordering powers of good design and typography and its ability in providing aid for traversing complex information environments. In an article, “Design, Development and Evaluation of Computer-Assisted Learning for Speech Science Education” he writes:

Graphic Design Issues.

We made a number of decisions at the outset of the project pertaining to the appearance of the finished product. One decision was to attempt to meet the highest standards that we could afford in graphic presentation.

We believed that this would be useful in creating and maintaining the interest of students. However, a much more important reason was the need to organize the visual and interactive presentations in such a way as to make their content as clear and simple as possible. These results of good design do not appear to come naturally to academics who may want to create multimedia teaching tools, as we observed in our own group. We were not concerned with issues of esthetics, although clean, satisfying appearance was our goal.

The use of design to organize the visual elements in a multimedia course is somewhat analogous to the use of language in writing a textbook. Skill in writing expository prose may or may not come naturally to an individual, but it can make the difference between a clear, well understood result and one that is confusing. The same comments can be applied to many attempts to create multimedia science teaching software which, while fully authentic, fail to communicate clearly.

A major, but not insuperable difficulty in obtaining the services of a qualified graphic designer is cost. In addition, we needed someone prepared to deal with the constraints as well as the opportunities offered by the computer screen. We knew of a very skilled designer of computer graphics in our area (Alyce Kaprow of the New Studio) and sought her advice. Although she could not design every screen, the foundation that she created was well-suited to our needs and was later adapted by our own staff designer to the execution of the entire course. The appearance of the course has often elicited favorable comments from students. Perhaps this reaction is due to a feeling that the authors of the software thought it important enough to have it designed with care and skill, rather than making a minimalist effort that suggests form rather than depicting it, as is often done.