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Jackie Van Nice

E-Learning Goodness by Jackie Van Nice

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Visual Design

Here’s an Easy Way to Make Money…

January 21, 2015 By Jackie Van Nice 9 Comments

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This week’s challenge is to come up with a creative invoice design.

I’m pretty sure David wanted us to create graphs of awesomeness to remind clients of why they should be excited to pay us (a genius idea!) but in the interest of time I went graph-less.

The Design

In real life I currently use a very vanilla invoice. To create one that’s a better reflection of my work I started with the general look and feel of my website, then added some color.

My first drafts were graphically bolder in both shapes and colors, but I kind of like this tamed-down-yet-colorful version. I also played with adding my logo and some other images, but just didn’t like them. I preferred the cleaner look you see here.

There were a lot of comments about and interest in my paper doll slider interaction today (featured on Articulate’s E-Learning Examples page), so I went with that and themed my invoice accordingly.

This is a mock-up I did in PowerPoint because it’s so easy to quickly play with shapes, color, and text there – but I may build it in InDesign next. At that point I’ll also add in a tiny bit more text to capture the practical details.

So What’s the Easy Way to Make Money?

Just remember to invoice your clients! It’s easy to get so caught up in the work that minor details like actually charging them can slip through the cracks. Make yourself a kicky little invoice and bill ’em!

Filed Under: Working for Yourself Tagged With: Community, ELHChallenge, Freelancing, Professional Development, Show Your Work, Visual Design

Where Infographics Meet Interactivity

January 10, 2015 By Jackie Van Nice 2 Comments

Select Image to Launch Demo

Select Image to Launch Demo

This Articulate challenge is to take an existing infographic and make it interactive.

The Infographic

I chose this one because of its simplicity and because I could picture how to make the Venn-diagrammatic intersections of each choice (Fast, Cheap, Great, and Free) interactive.

It also seemed relevant since we’re always discussing image quality and sourcing.

See the Similarity?

See the Similarity?

 3-D Chess, Anyone?

This infographic looks pretty easy to recreate, right? Well, not only were the colors and transparencies of the circles and intersections a challenge to imitate, but because of the interactivity I needed to have multiple images layered on top of one another in Storyline. It felt like I was building a 3-D chess board where the layers of color and transparency had to be kept in a delicate yet precarious balance. Quite the brain-bustery brain buster.

Engineering It

The Original

The Original

After the intro slide, everything is on one slide. There’s just one layer for “Try Again”, which means the rest of the interaction is completely controlled by states and conditional variables. Though not as thoroughly brain-busting as the visuals were, it was a good challenge.

I was really happy with my “Try Again” design, by the way. I loved that I got it to blend so nicely into the existing design, it gave me the chance to add some colors that helped balance the existing scheme, and I like the functionality of it.

Try it Out!

Select Image to Launch Demo

Select Image to Launch Demo

Find out what kind of graphics you get where fast, cheap, great, and/or free intersect!

Filed Under: E-Learning Tagged With: Articulate Storyline, Community, E-Learning Design, ELHChallenge, Show Your Work, Visual Design

Make it a Game: Climb Heroes Mountain!

December 31, 2014 By Jackie Van Nice 17 Comments

Select Image to Launch Demo

Select Image to Launch Demo

When people are new to the Articulate E-Learning Heroes community I like to point out a few things on the site to help them get going. Even if you know something exists – the weekly challenges, for example – you might not know how to find it.

Make a Game of It!

I thought it’d be fun to create a game that gets newbies to explore the site and points out some of the best tools around to help them succeed in their jobs. I’m entering it into David Anderson’s gaming challenge where I already have one cold, foamy, refreshing entry – but can you ever have enough games?

Some Nifty Features

Here are some elements I used that you could include in any game or interaction to make it more fun, effective, and appealing.

  • Images That Looks Just Like the Site's

    Images That Looks Just Like the Site’s

    A fully-realized and consistent theme: Since the topic is the ELH site, I tapped into its visual style and themes to create my own. I used the mountain on the ELH Discussions page and the happy campers in front of it to establish my camping and mountain-climbing theme. I also created pictogram images that mimic the look and feel of the site’s own images.

  • A game goal: The goal is to climb Heroes Mountain by taking on a series of challenges. Each challenge involves navigating the ELH site to find something of value.
  • Real-World Challenges & Motivation

    Real-World Challenges & Motivation

    Real-world motivation: Aligning your learner’s motivation with the game’s goals makes it involving from the start. My game character is new to e-learning and needs help in her job, just like lots of newcomers. What better motivation to learn about the helpful features of ELH?

  • Real-world decision making: In the game, you search for things on the site just like you would in real life. The only difference is feedback. If you’re headed in the right direction, feedback is delayed until you arrive at your goal. If you’re headed in the wrong direction, you learn more about the site and get a prompt to remind you of your goal.
  • Game Progress: Badges!

    Game Progress: Badges!

    Game Progress: Some Mountain Climbing

    Game Progress: Some Mountain Climbing

    Giving rewards and showing progress: After you meet each challenge, you earn a themed badge and your virtual stand-in climbs a little higher up the mountain. Seeing a goal and your progress towards it is always good motivation to keep going.

  • A satisfying result: Not only is there a “win” at the top of Heroes Mountain, but the game’s character also wins since meeting the challenges on the ELH site helped her become more successful in her job.

Ready to Make Your Own?

If you’d like to make your own game (and find lots of inspiring examples!) check out these game-specific ELH challenges: Create a Simple E-Learning Game, Steal This E-Learning Template, and E-Learning Games for Kids. Plus you can find lots of free templates to get started on the ELH site!

Happy new year – and happy climbing! You can make your way up Heroes Mountain right here.

Filed Under: E-Learning, Front Slider Tagged With: Articulate Storyline, Characters, Community, E-Learning Design, ELHChallenge, Emotional Engagement, Games, Instructional Design, Professional Development, Show Your Work, Visual Design

The 12 Days of Data Presentation

December 21, 2014 By Jackie Van Nice 10 Comments

Select Image to Launch Demo

Select Image to Launch Demo

This week’s ELHChallenge is to present data using interactive charts and graphs. With just 4 days until Christmas, I succumbed to the theme.

color-partridgeinapeartreeWhat to Chart?

There are a million Christmas-related things you could present, but I kept it light and charted the gifts given in the song The 12 Days of Christmas. I’ve never paid much attention to the totals in it, so the sheer mass by the end was a little eye-opening.

color-ladydancingHow to Chart It?

I went for a simple slider that lets the user choose the day and see the resulting total for all gifts given to that point. I tried to provide enough visual interest and information to make the concept clear – but it does assume familiarity with the song.

color-lordleapingrThe Gift of a New Challenge Year

I’m hopeful that none of us give or get quite this many gifts, but I’m looking forward to the gift of a whole new year’s worth of ELHChallenges – and I hope you are too!

Filed Under: E-Learning Tagged With: Articulate Storyline, Community, E-Learning Design, ELHChallenge, Show Your Work, Visual Design

Giving and Getting Free (and Beautiful!) Images

December 18, 2014 By Jackie Van Nice 10 Comments

If you’re an Articulate E-Learning Hero who’s also a designer you need good images and appreciate the benefits of a community whose members share their work and expertise.

#red challenge

#onaboat challenge

The morgueFile Community

You probably know morgueFile as a place to get free images, but I never knew their intention was to have a give-one-take-one sort of self-sustaining community. I thought their contributors were professional photographers and it never even occurred to me they’d want my contributions!

Since I’ve used some of their community’s photos to good effect for recent Articulate #ELHChallenge demos about digital magazines, freelancing tips, and ways to survive the holidays – I thought it would be fun to give back, too.

#sweet challenge#blueskies challenge

A Quick & Easy Way to Contribute

(Update: I’m no longer seeing the app or finding images I’ve contributed – but they’ve still got lots of images you can use!)

Last week I found out about their morgueFile #Quest app for iPhone*. Each day they issue a daily challenge (“red” for example), you snap a photo to answer it, upload it, and voilà! You’ve shared your work in a quick and easy way that helps both you and others.

Lucky for me I took a week of vacation right after discovering the app, so I had time to play with it and had oodles of fun taking pics and entering them into current and past challenges. You can see some of them on this page and get a glimpse of my vacay at the same time!

#santacostume challenge#framednicely challenge

The Win-Win-Win-Win-Win

Not only do I find it more motivating to take pics with the app like this, but I get to be creative in a different way, I have more photos to use for my own projects, I have new sources of inspiration, and it makes me happy knowing that someone else might benefit from these little bits of color and light I’m sharing too.

If this sounds like fun, you might want to give it a try! They even have a Classroom where you can learn more about the basics of photography and how to take better pics, if that’s your goal.

MorgueFile Quest App

*You don’t need the app to contribute to the site, of course! You can upload your contributions via any browser.

Filed Under: Working for Yourself Tagged With: Community, E-Learning Design, ELHChallenge, Free Download, Freelancing, Instructional Design, Professional Development, Show Your Work, Visual Design

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I’m an award-winning instructional designer and proud Articulate Super Hero who creates e-learning for large organizations. I blog to explain my design process, share tips and tricks, and help others succeed. I hope you enjoy my refreshing gallery of e-learning goodness!

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