The way information is visually designed and synthesized greatly affects how people understand and use that information. Increased use of the World Wide Web as a teaching tool makes it imperative to question how visual/verbal information presented via the Web can increase or restrict understanding. The purpose of this study was to examine students' perceptions of the effectiveness of visuals in conveying the instructional message in an educational Web course. Participants were 15 seven-, eight-, and nine-year-old students. The students were asked about the design of the pages using one of the top Web course sites for children. Questions focused on information/instructional purposes, graphic/picture elements, text/lettering elements, color, layout, and texturing. Results indicated the following: (1) none of the students understood that all the sites dealt with child safety; (2) the majority of the students understood the concept of the sites as they read the information being presented, and at this point, did not use the visual designs to interpret the meaning of the sites; (3) the visual designs did not help the students make an association with the information being given; (4) students liked the color of the lettering and the background, which used cold colors; (5) students liked the uniformed layout of the sites, and none had difficulty moving from one location to another. (AEF)