CARP Project

This week's assignment addressed the design actions of Contrast, Alignment, Repetition, and Proximity, or "CARP". By carefully applying these actions to a design's elements (such as type, shape, color, dimension, and space), viewers can more easily select, organize, and integrate information (Lohr, 2008, p. 207).

Since I created this graphic as part of my web tutorial on prepositions, I considered the students who will be using the graphic. For high-school students, I want to provide enough visual interest that the image doesn't seem too boring or elementary, but I also don't want to overwhelm them with extraneous details. As beginning Spanish students, they need linguistic support for the objects in the picture (in this case, fruit), so that they can immediately use the prepositions from this lesson.

I used CARP in the following ways:

• Contrast between shapes and colors makes the various fruits quickly identifiable. The bold font labeling the fruits will help students verbalize spatial relationships while reducing cognitive load.
• Alignment of the crates helps "establish unity among different elements" (Lohr, 2008, p. 207) and organizes the information. This simple arrangement will make it easier for beginning Spanish students to apply prepositional terms such as "to the left of", "above", and "next to". 
• Repetition of the fruit labels, the fruit shapes, and the spatial arrangement helps learners make connections.
• Proximity of "like" images help learners perceive the organization of this graphic. Additionally, there is a heading (the "name" of the fruit stand) and subordinate content below (the various fruits in their respective crates).

I had my husband look at this image and verbalize what he saw. Initially, he didn't remember which assignment I was working on, and he thought it might be a good graphic for teaching any number of topics (colors, fruit, prepositions, articles, numbers, or comparisons). He said he liked the colors, the shapes, and the wood texture, and that it looked "professional". One thing I was worried about was the size of the price tags in each fruit crate; I wanted tags just to make the image look more authentic, but they really have nothing to do with the lesson. I asked him if the small price tag font was a distraction, and he said it wasn't. I would greatly appreciate feedback on this detail, if anyone has thoughts...

Based on the initial user-test, I don't plan on any major revisions. 

Lohr, L.L. (2008). Creating graphics for learning and performance: Lessons in visual literacy (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Fruit clip art created by casino, Gerald_G, and nicubunu and used with permission.
Crate clip art and wood pattern created by nemo and used with permission.