Cito
Visually instructing Dutch national exams of secondary education
Cito is a household name for anyone who attended school in Holland. Mostly known for developing the yearly test for elementary school, Cito is also responsible for providing all the national high school exams. For the practical exams in secondary education, we produce all the instructions in illustrated and animated formats.
Especially for young students planning to pick up a practical profession, their exam instructions are ideally visual instead of textual. For Cito, the advantage of having illustrated and animated instructions for such a large student population nationwide is significant. For ten years straight the visual content that we provide them with, subdivided for every different academy discipline, has been incorporated in the national exams.
The value we added
Strategy — One of the main challenges of designing a visual language for national exams was keeping control of information processing by candidates. The psychological requirements that help focus attention are crucial when the examination results of thousands of students are at stake. In order to work with cognitive ability, instead of against it, we carefully picked colors that are calm and durable, and an animation pace that does not trigger any sensations of haste.
The design — The visual language was crafted carefully around a few variables. The illustration style had to incorporate both technical subjects as well as human subjects, ranging from simple objects to elaborate landscapes. A systematic use of line thickness retains consistency over different illustrated topics. The color palette was picked to be relaxing to the eye and clear, but low in stimulation. A dim green and warm grey have a deliberate calming effect. The pace of the animation was tuned so as not to overwhelm.
Studio Kartel designs animations that are used for the central exams for many years already to our great satisfaction. Within Cito we are very content with the pleasant collaboration. The communication is easy and fast.
- Paola Stam
- Test Expert of Cito
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