Visual+Literacy



Visual Literacy The visual message in this table shows how much certain types of protein are consumed in the United States. As for the overall design in terms of the PAT model, there are more negatives than positives. To start, the Table does not easily help me understand what I am looking at. I had to look at the chart a few times before I even noticed the word “overproteined”, which does help me understand the table. I think that overall the use of Actions and Tools are fairly good, however the Perceptions need help. I will start with what I like. The use of Tools is effective since the color and clip art make it very easy for me to get an idea right away that I am looking at a Table that deals with food. The KFC bucket stands out the most and draws my eyes right to it, although the Proximity isn’t helpful since the clip art is placed in a random manner. I like the use of different colors for each statement made. This helps me distinguish that each section contains different content. However, none of these help the learner to understand anything about the issue of “overproteined”. The biggest problem is there is no hierarchy so that the learner is unable to sort out what is important and why it is important. If the creator of the chart were to incorporate more of the Gestalt with Proximity under Perceptions of the PAT model, the learner would be drawn visually to what is important. This could be accomplished by placing the clip art in the same place in each box and by having them be a similar size (so it doesn’t give more emphasis on one object over another). This would also help the title of the chart to stand out.