An experience of evaluating designs of multimedia educational materials for primary education

The increasing presence of multimedia materials in the teaching and learning process demands greater attention paid to their design and production. The purpose of this study is to analyze and evaluate different formats for the presentation of multimedia contents aimed to primary school pupils. The ultimate goal is to establish a series of design guidelines when preparing these kinds of resources. In order to do this, three experiments were conducted using eye-tracking methodology and then we compared two different formats of presentation and tested which were the most appropriate settings. Upon further analysis of the information collected in the three experiments, it was concluded that a higher efficiency is achieved in learning when less complex structures are used. Specifically, avoiding distractions that do not provide relevant information and affect negatively to a greater or lesser extent the learning process of the students.