Connie Malamed

Learn how to transform your unique perspective into helpful content to develop thought leadership as a learning professional.

How to Increase Your Visibility as a Learning Professional Are you looking for more opportunities? Here are 12 ways to elevate your visibility as a learning professional and stand out.

You can stand out while being your authentic self. Here are some ways to boost your visibility and avoid feeling icky. theelearningcoach.com/career/eleva...

Repost from LinkedIn. I've noticed that you can overcome the discomfort of posting about your work or your ideas by ensuring that what you have to say has value and will help others. Being willing to serve the greater community results in becoming more visible. It's a win-win.

ELC 088: How to Begin Your Journey of Designing for All Learners If you're feeling overwhelmed about how to practice inclusive design, this episode gives you practical advice so you can start today.

Do you want to start on your journey of designing accessible and inclusive learning experiences? Sarah Mercier has some great advice for you > theelearningcoach.com/podcasts/88/

How I wrote the notes app of my dreams (no coding required) The new phenomenon known as vibecoding lets you describe an app and have AI build it to your specifications. The results astounded me.

Interest in having AI code your dream app? This person did it > www.fastcompany.com/91309330/vib...

Your favorite newsletter’s favorite newsletters A chain-letter love note to an expanding multiverse

Remember chain emails? Caitlan Dewey asked the writers of her 7 favorite newsletters what their favorites were. Then she asked the writers of those newsletters the same question and on and on. See her newsletter. HT Dave Gray > linksiwouldgchatyou.substack.com/p/your-favor...

Thanks for the share Clark.

YouTube video by NNgroup 3 Ways to Test Your Survey

You would never distribute a survey without testing it, right? But your friend does. This short video will tell your friend how to test it so they get the data they're looking for > www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltob...

I got very curious about curiosity recently and slogged through a lot of research articles to find relevant tidbits. I found lots of strategies to spark curiosity in adult learners > theelearningcoach.com/elearning_de...

Perhaps the most important aspect of productivity is working with greater intention. I love to research this stuff and found the 52/17 rule, the Zeigarnik Effect and 7 more > theelearningcoach.com/business/how...

-- A wavy line may indicate creativity or fun.
-- Many lines in one design may overpower the visual information. That's why I usually use a light to medium gray for a table grid.

I find visual language endlessly fascinating!

[from my 30 days of visual design for learning design on LinkedIn]

It's interesting to notice how the qualities of the rule affect a design.
-- A thick or dark line creates emphasis. That might work beneath a title.
-- A thin or light line separates information, but in a subtle way. The viewer may barely notice it, but it still works.

In a presentation or eLearning slide, you might use a vertical line to separate visual elements. If you want the viewer to compare two graphics or columns of text, a thin vertical rule between the visual elements may make the comparison more clear and easier to process.

For example, in a newsletter, you might see the title separated from the text with a horizontal line. This emphasizes the title and informs the reader that the content is in a separate area.

One effective approach is to use rules--horizontal or vertical lines. Placing a rule in your design may be a more compelling strategy than using space alone.

You can use rules to:
-- Separate content/visual elements
-- Organize a layout
-- Guide the viewer's eyes
-- Emphasize a visual element

One of the most important topics in visual design for learning design is organizing graphic space. We never want our designs to interfere with learning.

How can you organize graphic space and the information within that space?

Do you have leadership experience to share with your peers? The Learning Leaders Conference 2025 has an open call for proposals until the end of the month > www.thelearningconference.com/attend/call-...

That’s really helpful Christy.

-- But memory for pictures and words together is superior than words alone or pictures alone.

--"Use pictures and words together, and ensure that they reinforce the same information for optimal effect." --Universal Principles of Design

The Picture Superiority Effect states that pictures are remembered better than words. Under many conditions, pictures ARE more easily recognized and recalled than words (such as for concrete visuals).

He's trying to get you to react. Stay cool.

Ha ha

I wrote an article about this if you'd like to read more > theelearningcoach.com/learning/des...

We disregard anything that is not meaningful in the moment.

This has implications for design. If we want viewers to notice something quickly, we can use a few primitive features. (Think red stop sign.)

If we want to maintain attention, we should use meaningful and motivating visuals.

Top-down processing is influenced by motivation, previous knowledge, expectations, and our current goals.

This second phase of perception is top-down processing.The top-down theory of processing explains that a person’s cognitive system actively influences perception.

The output from bottom-up processing passes on to other areas of the brain and influences where we place our attention.

Bottom-up visual processing occurs early in the vision process without conscious attention or effort. We detect features like motion, size, color, depth, edges of shapes, contours and contrasts without conscious awareness. This helps us to quickly recognize objects.

I think that the theories of bottom-up and top-down processing do well in explaining how we process visual (and other sense-based) information.

I got merrymaking!