Version 1
Subtle, realistic differences
What I was going for
- One shared scene (a bright star, a few small stars, a line of subtitles) so the only thing that changes is the TV.
- Realistic differences: black level and glow change gradually from OLED to Crystal LED.
- Short captions under each screen so the visual and the words reinforce each other (dual coding).
Feedback
“It's really hard to tell because they all look the same — the details need to be more drastic to make them more distinct.”
At thumbnail size, the gray steps between screens were too small to notice, so learners would have to read the captions to see any difference.
Version 2 · Current
Exaggerated, one signature trait per TV
What changed and why
- Exaggerate the difference that matters. Each screen now pushes one trait to the extreme, so the difference is visible at a glance, before reading.
- More dimensions than black level. I added a band of colored aurora light, so brightness, color and glow can all differ, not just how gray the sky is.
- Make each TV's mechanism visible. Mini-LED's glow now appears in square blocks, which is literally how dimming zones behave, and it ties back to the layer diagram in the deep dive.
- Sharper captions. Each caption names the trait the learner should notice, and the instructions now prompt four things to look for.
| TV | Version 1 | Version 2 |
|---|---|---|
| OLED | Black sky, no glow | Pitch-black sky, razor-sharp stars and subtitles, rich color |
| Mini-LED | Near-black sky, faint halo, faint grid | Brightest star with long rays, square blocks of glow around bright objects |
| QLED | Dark gray sky, soft glow | Most vivid, saturated colors, but a clearly gray-blue sky |
| Crystal LED | Gray sky, wider glow | Washed-out gray, dull faded color, dimmer star, wide hazy glow |
These are teaching illustrations, deliberately exaggerated to make each TV's strengths and trade-offs easy to see. They aren't photographs of real panels.