Increase Readability with a Simple Effect
Background images are one of the best ways to add visual interest to your e-learning slides. The right background image can help establish the context for a slide, create a sense of location, or subtly add depth to your slides.
But background images can be tricky. As the largest slide design element, background images often compete with instructional elements like text, graphics, and buttons.
Here’s an example of a full-slide background image that competes with the on-slide text and character.
An easy way to fix this slide is to blur the background. Blurring creates better contrast between the background image and foreground elements.
Here’s an updated example with some moderate blur applied to the background image.
Notice how the character stands out and the text is more readable. The image keeps enough detail to set the scene while our main design elements come forward.
Moving from Blurred to Abstract
Use a heavier blur setting for a more abstract background effect. The image’s colors remain, but the detail is lost.
Backgrounds don't need to dominate your slide to be effective. Sometimes a subtle, supporting role is all your slide needs. And finding that right balance is what this week's e-learning challenge is about!
🏆 Challenge of the Week
This week, your challenge is to share an e-learning slide, demo, or design comp with blurred backgrounds. Include before-and-after examples to show how your background graphics transformed your slides.
🙌 Share Your E-Learning Work
You put in the effort, now make sure your work gets seen:
- Personal blog: If you have a blog, please write about your example from this week’s challenge and share the link with your submission.
- Social media: Please share your examples on LinkedIn and mention both David & Articulate using the #ElearningChallenge tags so we can help promote your work.
- Support your peers: With the new submission format, you can comment directly on each example. Try leaving helpful feedback on at least three projects this week.
- Community forums: Feel free to cross-post in the forums to give your work even more visibility.
🙌 Last Week’s Challenge:
Before jumping into this week's background challenge, check out the creative solutions your fellow community members shared for using a single vector graphic for course elements:
Using Vector Graphics in E-Learning #545: Challenge | Recap
👋 New to the E-Learning Challenges?
The weekly e-learning challenges are ongoing opportunities to learn, share, and build your e-learning portfolios. You can jump into any or all of the previous challenges anytime you want. I’ll update the recap posts to include your demos.
Learn more about the challenges in this Q&A post and why and how to participate in this helpful article.
