Pretty = Usable

Far from being in conflict, it turns out that "pretty" and "usable" are the siamese twins of good usability. Research continues to prove that attractive things are, literally, easier to use. How is that possible? Well, it all comes down to emotion and the brain...


Designers (and users) have intuitively known for centuries that if it's "gorgeous", "inviting", or "fun", it just seems to work

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Vintage Printables

This site is such a treasure, I almost want to keep it to myself...Public Domain Vintage illustrations lovingly scanned are available at Vintage Printable. Beautiful! (And thank you thank you thank you).

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3D animated movies for learning in minutes

From the desktop to the classroom, teachers are dabbling in DIY animation cause, heck, why not. Be it 2D, 3D or stop motion, animations, and the act of animating, can become a central part of learning, even, apparantly, in primary school. One favored tool is xtranormal STATE which turns text into a 3D animated movie and it's completely free. Write your story, pick your characters and get

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Online Educational Games

Online games for kids that teach skills in math, science and language arts are available for free at arcademicskillbuilders.com. This University of Kansas based initiative also features a plethora of other online teacher resources via 4Teachers.org (just check out the drop down at the top right of the screen). Kudos to the folks at ALTEC, U. of Kansas.

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Design Principles Database

Dip into expert knowledge on learning design at the design principles database:The Design Principles Database (DPD) "is a place for you to learn from the wisdom gained by dozens of researchers who have designed, enacted with students, and studied the use of technology for learning. This wisdom is translated in the DPD into pedagogical Design Principles"."browse or search the dpd for design

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