Education Commons^™

The Invisible Message, Andrew S. Gibbons Iii, Elizabeth Boling

Faculty Publications

The number and variety of messages conveyed by an instructional experience is astonishing, but most designers are unaware of their number, subtlety, and impact. Many of those messages they would not choose to send if they recognized their existence in practice. The design of invisible and abstract message structures receives less attention from designers today than those parts of the design given to more vivid, colorful, and showy surface structures. Invisible message structures work behind the scenes to produce the smooth surface performances in front of the curtain; they are seldom seen directly, but their power is indisputable. The purpose …