Click Image to Launch Demo – With Audio!
This week’s Articulate challenge is to create an e-learning themed cereal box, so I did my best to channel a bit of Toucan Sam and some Michael Allen and got to work.
The Idea
I started by brainstorming the usual nouns on cereal boxes: Flakes, crispies, crunch, smacks, loops, etc. Once I got to “loops” I drifted to thoughts of frustratingly locked-down e-learning navigation and came up with “Locked Navigation Loops” as my cereal.
The Design
The Navigation Police
For the visuals, I like the classic cartoon-character-on-the-cereal-box look, so my first search was for a perky prisoner. Once I found her, I grabbed an image of a cereal bowl and a cartoon cop who could enforce the rules and mixed them together with some fonts and other graphic elements in a big bowl of milk.
The audio seemed necessary to get the goofball cartoon cereal feel, so I added lots of sound effects and a lovely cartoon-y tune I found at AudioNautix.com.
Once I synced images and music, I was pretty much done. Oh – and I added some frustratingly pointless feedback since that’s the only kind I ever see when viewing e-learning courses with locked-down navigation. Call it an “homage”.
Enjoy a Little Lock-Up Time Right Now!
Here’s my cereal box demo in all of its cacophonic glory. I hope you like it!
Click Image to Launch Demo – With Audio!
That’s awesome, I love the cool visuals, music and sound effects, very clever! And in appreciation for all your hard work, here’s an expired link to my website that goes nowhere:
http://cropcirclecollective.com/old_broken_down_nonfunctional_link_to_nowhere/story.html
Glad you like it, Dan! I can’t imagine a better gift, either. Thank you so much. I’ll add it to my stack of links to locked-nav and next-button e-learning I never want to see again. :)
Hilarious Jackie- details down to the strawberry jail keys are great- can’t wait to share this as feedback for students who insist on holding those course reins tightly.
Thanks, Barbara! It’s chilling to hear that students – those fresh-faced ready-to-make-the-industry-a-better-place crazy kids – are holding tightly to something as ridiculous as locked-down navigation. (Don’t tell me how they feel about next buttons.)
As you know it takes time, care, determined imagination, well-applied creativity, and a good dose of letting go to design learning that adult learners will find effective and be motivated to take – but what kind of legacy do you want to have? In the end you can look back at a snoozy career that produced a wake of materials celebrating outdated teaching methods that were as effective as already-chewed gum, or you can move the field forward in ways that excite and energize you, the work you produce, and your lucky learners.
Ha! That was good Jackie… Nice idea with the marshmallow keys. Keeps the user from “picking” his or her teeth after breakfast…
Hahaha Michael :) Something tells me this isn’t the first time you’ve experienced breakfast navigation lockdown!
Wonderful Jackie. Always an inspiration!
Thanks so much, Jenny! I’m really glad you like it. :)
Great job! Would you explain how you did the prisoner? Did you make it in PowerPoint like you did the singing quartet?
Thanks, Caryn! So glad you like it. In the interest of time I actually purchased the prisoner, cereal bowl, and cop images. Sometimes it’s just the way to go. :)