Potential Pitfalls

Despite its strong features, VizAbility might fail to work as intended for three reasons which are described below.

1. VizAbility does not provide a mechanism for overall assessment of or feedback on the user’s work. Ideally, it could identify a user’s strengths and weaknesses and suggest additional reading or exercises. This amplifies the user’s feeling of not being sure what was learned by going through the exercises and cause some users to quit prematurely, before they have obtained maximum benefit from the software.
   
   
2. VizAbility supports limited capability to keep persistent memory of the user’s work done on the computer, though it encourages the user to keep his or her own paper "idea log." While much visual thinking is amenable to paper recording, some is not; particularly the software-supported experimentation with multimedia itself as a visual thinking tool. Electronic "idea logs" may be better suited to learners who do not possess traditional artistic skills and may expand the horizons of those who do. Because it does not allow the user to record and share his or her electronic work, VizAbility ends up detrimentally favoring the paper medium.
   
   
3. There is a lack of scaffolding in some of the difficult puzzles and concepts. In a few cases that we have identified, learners not initially understanding the exercise are not lead through the concepts in comprehensive ways.
   
   
4. VizAbility does not explicitly support a collaborative learning environment, as advocated by Bellamy. Although the CD-ROM itself probably should not require multiple users, it would enhance the spirit of learning as a member of a community if learners were given a medium in which to share their work with teachers and with other learners.