Focusing on the function
Teachers love visuals and visual stimuli. Elementary school teachers often work really hard to set up a classroom that has a lot of things that draw the attention of the students. Biology teachers have complex graphics that demonstrate the process of photosynthesis or the different types of macromolecules. These visuals are both attractive and information dense so that you can get a lot on a page and students can "see the whole picture." I used to love these types of visuals as well because they can quickly convey information to my students and I can say- "just review the visual, everything is there." Unfortunately it turns out that the novice student sees this kind of visual and thinks there is too much info and they will never understand it. Cognitive Load Theory says that the learner needs to be able to focus their attention on something in order to begin to process it. Keeping the visuals simple with a limited amount of information actually increases the likel