Extraneous overload occurs when essential cognitive processing (required to understand the essential material in a multimedia message) and extraneous cognitive processing (required to process extraneous material or to overcome confusing layout in a multimedia message) exceed the learner's cognitive capacity. According to the cognitive theory of multimedia learning, the five ways to handle an extraneous overload situation are to: eliminate extraneous material (coherence principle), insert signals emphasizing the essential material (signaling principle), eliminate redundant printed text (redundancy principle), place printed text next to corresponding parts of graphics (spatial contiguity principle), and eliminate the need to hold essential material in working memory for long periods of time (temporal contiguity principle). The research reviewed in this chapter shows that instructional designers should be sensitive to the limitations of working memory by being careful about the amount and layout of information that is presented to learners.