The Information Interaction Design theory combines three components; information, interaction and sensorial design (Shedroff, 1994). Since all learners have different needs, I particularly like this theory of design because no matter the needs of the learner, whether they are visual or hands on, if done right, this type of information design should be able to reach them.
Here is a very simple sample to demonstrate the theory. Lets say our students are new artists and we want to teach them how to make several colors out of just the 3 primary colors (I'm sure this sounds very familiar).
The idea behind this design is to take the information known - (information - how to make additional colors from the primary colors), display the colors to visually stimulate the senses (sensorial) and then hide the linking lines and only have them display when the user clicked on a color and then only the specific lines would appear, showing where the color originated from (unfortunately that is beyond my ability to actually demonstrate in this forum - but I hope you get the idea), which would provide the last piece of the theory - interaction.
You could also move beyond the intangible and allow users to physically experience mixing colors with paint. They could follow the diagram and then actually create the colors depicted which would touch upon sensorial (touching and smelling the paint), interaction (physically manipulating the paint) and again information as they learn what happens when slightly more of one color is added or how much of each is the perfect amount to achieve the desired color.
I'm not a painter and I don't know about you - but this sounds like fun and I want to do it!
Shedroff, N. (1994). Information interaction design: A unified field theory of design. Retrieved from http://www.nathan.com/thoughts/unified/index.html
