science of animation and education

A lot of the animation and design literature I've been reading are all ominously warning about similar things, it looks like:

- don't have too much detail (it's distracting and overwhelming)

- use visual cues / graphic devices (like arrows, transparencies, highlighting with colour, different line weight, cut-aways etc.)

- go slowly on complicated parts

- don't combine text with speech, or text with too much/any animation

And... a lot are pretty adamant that the only way to deliver a good, educational animation is to make it interactive. This gives the viewer control to stop, pause, and rewind at will, which can solve the problem of 'too-much-information-too-fast'.

In conclusion, my current visual solution of using both schematic and realistic rendering styles could be improved if I add scene selection capabilities to the end product.

(Thanks science!)