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Show Your Work: E-Learning Messiness By Me

May 18, 2014 By Jackie Van Nice 2 Comments

I love when people show their work. The whole creative process is inexplicable and mesmerizing and the only evidence of the path afterwards is the detritus left behind. My desk is full of mesmerizing detritus, so I thought I’d share. If Austin Kleon can do it, so can I.

This is how I designed my CCAF design model demo for last week’s Articulate challenge. Pretty typical of my process. If I’d known I’d be sharing, this would look way better.

Sketch One: The Whole Idea

First Sketch, Page 1: The Entire Interaction Idea on Paper

I never look back at my sketches, so the surprise to me is that the whole thing was there from the start. It felt more difficult than that. I think there were just a couple of details that bugged me for days.

First Sketch, Page 2: More Detail About the Activity & Feedback Sections

First Screen

It’s interesting to see the quick sketch of the first screen below versus the final result. It was the simplest screen of all, but you see how much went into image and color selection and then making the details tight, clean, and balanced.

Player Tab: I was thinking of including a player tab to offer more details about CCAF, but decided that info should only be available at a point of greater need; just before and after the activity.

Writing: I didn’t work out the text or script in detail beforehand. That comes easily once I’ve got the other elements in place.

First Screen: 30-Second iPad Sketch

First Screen: Final Result

Activity Screens

These ate at me because it took time to get both the layout and functionality exactly the way I wanted, but I was happy when they came together at the 11th hour.

Activity Screen: Quick iPad Sketch

Activity Screen: Final Result

Feedback Screens

In the iPad sketch below you can see I was looking at how many parts of the CCAF activity the user got wrong. I knew the score couldn’t be the focus of the feedback, but it helped me map out the five learner reactions that were the focus.

Feedback Screen: Quick iPad Sketch

Feedback Screen: Final Result

Colors: Obey the Wall

All of the final-version slides show my text-box color decisions. If they’re:

About the ID, they’re the same green as her jacket.
About the learner (including designing for him), they’re the same blue as his shirt.
An instruction or indicator that applies to the whole interaction, they’re the same orange as the wall.

An Eye-Opening Exercise

I don’t know if this exercise was helpful to you, but it’s helped me! I’ve never observed my own process like this before and it makes me appreciate the time and effort it takes to go from A to Z. Sounds ridiculous since I’m the one doing it, but it’s hard to see when you’re caught up in the process. Once I’m done with something I focus on the result, but I don’t go back and look at it like this.

Have You Shown the Messy Side of Your E-Learning Work?

I’d love to see if you’ve shared the messier parts of your e-learning projects, too! If you have, I hope you’ll share your shares.

7 Lessons Learned Going to WordPress.org

May 17, 2014 By Jackie Van Nice 9 Comments

I’d been keeping my e-learning samples on a hosted site and my blog on wordpress.com, which WordPress hosts for free. I didn’t like the jagged user experience of following links between the two sites, so I opted to move my blog over to my hosted site, where wordpress.org must be used, to join my e-learning samples. This is the tale of that move.

After an eventful 3 weeks taking my site from WordPress.com to WordPress.org, I thought I should leave some lessons-learned breadcrumbs behind to help others through the not-always-enchanted forest between the two.

1. Find the Right Host

Can Their Servers Handle WordPress? I already had a hosted site without WP installed. This is what it took to get it going:
1. When their quick WP install failed for me, support installed it and it ran like glue. Their server couldn’t save down the latest PHP script on their Windows servers and they said I’d have to move to a Linux server.
2. Linux has been OK, but as I sat down to write this, my site was loading so slowly I had to call support because I couldn’t even load the dashboard to write a new post.
3. My host said today they released a WP-specific package with WP-dedicated servers and support, and that the transition would be seamless. I’m giving them one last try, and I’ll let you know how it goes.
  All hosts and servers aren’t the same. They have to be WordPress-savvy.

Can Their People Handle WordPress? Once I reached the permalink redirect debacle (#7 below) this happened:
1. The host couldn’t figure out where its own 404 redirect was pointing and desperate tech people started throwing random HTML files into the root of my directory that just made it worse.
2. After many calls I finally stumbled across a support person who looked at the primary .htaccess file and realized it didn’t have the 8 simple lines of code it needed to make WP work. That was a breakthrough.
3. Then the host randomly wiped it a few days later. I figured out how to fix it myself, but now I check several times a day to be sure my 301 redirects are still working. It’s kind of ridiculous.
  Make sure your host has people who are skilled at WordPress.
Ask Others Which Hosts They Use & Like: As things were looking bad during my test phase, I posted this thread in the Articulate forums and got lots of good recommendations for hosting options and much more. If you’re going to do this, check it out.

2. Set Up & Test Your New Site Before Redirecting from WordPress.com

Export your content from the old site using Dashboard >Tools > Export.
Install a plug-in so you can import your content. I used the WordPress.com Importer plug-in.
Choose a theme. Even if you paid for a premium one on WordPress.com, you can’t take it with you. Look for a free or premium one via Themes > Dashboard, or shop elsewhere. Be sure it’s got the features you want. I wanted a lot of control over fonts, colors, layout, and images – plus access to the CSS and a responsive design for mobile devices. If you’re buying a theme, don’t assume it has everything you want. Find out before you spend the money.
Set up your theme. Make it look and act the way you want using the theme options provided.
Customize your theme, if needed. For mine, I changed the fonts to Google Fonts by adding some code to the CSS. My theme designer had good documentation about how to do that. The only thing I hated about my theme was the ugly gray background added to captioned images. I got lucky and my brilliant instructional designer colleague Ashley Chiasson was kind enough to figure out some CSS to fix it, but normally you’d be heading back to your theme designer to do a custom fix, which means more money.

3. Have Your Security Options in Place

On WordPress.com, they handled the security. Now it’s up to you, so be sure you and/or your host have some protection in place. I tried out a recommended security plug-in, but uninstalled it while troubleshooting all of the other issues. Instead of mucking up my WP install any further with more plug-ins, I opted for back-end security from my host.

4. Have Your Back-Up Plan in Place

On WordPress.com, they backed it up. (Though if you deleted your own content, you were on your own.) There are lots of options. Again, I went with a full back-up service provided by my host, but I also make sure I export a back-up of my content every time I post or make similar changes.

5. Redirect Your Site from WordPress.com

After you’re really sure the site looks and feels and acts the way you want, you’re ready to redirect from WordPress.com. It costs $30 per year, but works well. Just be aware of my final tip at the end of #7 below.

6. Install the JetPack Plug-In & Choose Options Carefully

JetPack adds some helpful features. For me, it made it easy to bring over followers/subscribers and I like their stats display better. There are a lot of options, but I’d suggest only activating what you need. JetPack features are the number one things that tend to interfere with my theme’s features, and the Photon one resulted in very poor-quality images.

7. Coddle Your Permalinks

I always say (and mean) that everything is a gift. Once I realized that not one link from my old site could possibly forward to my new one without going to a host-supplied 404 page that made it look like my site no longer existed (#1 above), I knew I had a real gift on my hands. My host’s lack of WP knowledge was half of it, but permalink issues were the other half.

My permalinks completely lost their minds on WordPress.org. After troubleshooting (could have been several causes), I ended up having to go back to the default permalink format, which then changed all of my permalinks yet again.
I found the Quick Page/Post Redirect Plug-In that let me set up 301 (permanent, individual URL) redirects for every page and post. It still failed until my host figured out that they hadn’t set up my .htaccess file properly, but once that was resolved, this plug-in worked beautifully and was a lifesaver.
Pay attention to your permalinks when you redirect from WordPress.com. The redirect will only go to the exact URL you want if the permalinks are identical, and if you experience any permalink insanity like I did, you’ll want to use a good 301 redirect plug-in.

A Model Smart Enough to Teach Itself

May 15, 2014 By Jackie Van Nice 10 Comments

This week’s Articulate E-Learning Heroes Challenge is to create an interaction to teach something about instructional design. So I took my favorite piece of e-learning wisdom, Michael Allen’s CCAF (Context-Challenge-Activity-Feedback) design model, and used it to teach itself.

Come On In – The Context Is Fine!

Your Context (Select Image to Launch Demo)

I plunged the learner into a demonstration of CCAF by supplying some context. Turns out you’re an e-learning designer who takes pride in creating effective learning. (Who knew?)

Your Challenge

Your challenge is to create fabulous e-learning using the CCAF model. If you accept the challenge and fail, you will torment your learners with terrible e-learning. If you succeed, learners will sing your praises and the world will be a better place. You have the option to check out a handful of CCAF tips before you start, but it’s always more fun to just dive in and see what happens.

There’s Something In My Activity

Your Activity

Since the activity part of this CCAF demonstration is to choose effective design elements using all four parts of the CCAF model, this is where it gets a little mind-bending – not for the user so much as the designer. But my CCAF-inside-of-CCAF-induced headaches this week are distant memories now, and they were worth it.

Everything’s Feedbacking – Can’t You Hear It?!*

Your Feedback

The feedback focuses on showing you the direct result your design choices had on the learner. However, since there are five possible outcomes (choosing 1, 2, 3, 4, or none of the ideal design options) – and I wanted you to be able to go back and play with it to get different results – I decided to give an indication of how many good choices you made, too.

Custom Results Help – Thank You E-Learning Heroes!

I’d never needed so many custom results slides before, and lucky for me – as always! – the Articulate forums came to the rescue. It involved creating 5 custom feedback layers on my results slide – then creating a trigger on the results slide telling it to show the appropriate layer based on the learner’s score using a built-in variable. My shout-out goes to Blair Parkin who offered this helpful little nugget in response to a question, and it really helped me out.

Blair Parkin’s Trigger Magic

Enjoy!

Hope you like this little demo. It lets you be the superhero e-learning designer you always knew you were, and you can try it out right here.

*Gift to self. It’s an impassioned cry on an Apples in Stereo song that I can’t get out of my head when I think of feedback.

Does Context Matter? Here’s a Before & After

May 4, 2014 By Jackie Van Nice 4 Comments

Before and After Example: Software Training

David Anderson’s Articulate challenge last week was to create an example of “bad” e-learning, and this week it’s time to turn “bad” into “good”. He wanted short, focused examples – so I chose a couple of screens and focused on context. The “before” is from a client, the “after” is from the lesson I created for the client.

What’s Context?

My first question in every new project is: “How will the learner use this information in the real world?” Then I try to design the piece from the learner’s post-course real-world point of view to show them why they’ll care about it and when where and how it’s going to come in handy. Using effective context can add lot of interest and learner motivation, too.

The Bad E-Learning “Before” – Where’s the Context?

This client had two “before” versions of this training. The learner is a salesperson who needs to know how to use the photo options on his mobile sales device. The first “before” version used the “show me, try me, test me” approach. Both versions were real and both went live.

Bad-E-Learning-Inspired Mimosa

The Show-Me-Try-Me-Test-Me Debacle

How I wish I could show you this one! It was done in Captivate (not Captivate’s fault), navigation was completely locked down, the pace was crazy slow, there was no intro or context, and all you saw was the computer screen with a mouse slowly moving around and the occasional text box popping up with cryptic information. Whenever you thought it was your turn to “try” it, it wasn’t.

It was as satisfying and enjoyable as using a voice-response phone system when the robo operator can’t understand anything you’re saying. I could only make it through two or three minutes of this course before I had to literally hang up on it and figuratively go have a mimosa on the veranda to compose myself.

The “Before” Training

The Slide-With-Animated-Text-Box Version

The other “before” version is still bad, but you’re never under the delusion that your input is desired or needed and you have a little freedom of navigation, so it’s less offensive. As training, it’s just animated software documentation. It’s context-free and a big snooze, jam-packed with information you’d never be able to retain when presented like this.

The Good E-Learning “After” – There’s the Context!

One Little Hitch

In the real course I teach the salesperson to use the camera during the sales process where they really need it. Since I can’t show you anything about their sales process in this example, I had to get creative.

Select Image to Launch “After” Demo

Plan “B”

Since a manager often takes a new salesperson out into the parking lot to introduce him to the basics of the newly-issued device, that’s the context I used. I knew learners would glaze over when hearing about sexy things like “white balance adjustments”, so I tried to think of a context in which photo adjustments in the parking lot with the manager would have meaning.

I came up with the idea of the salesperson taking practice shots of his manager to show what can go wrong when taking a photo, and then showing him how to make photo adjustments so his manager looks better. (There’s some motivation!) Putting the manager in silly poses added some much-needed humor, too. All together, it brought some context and emotional engagement to a very dry topic.

Before vs. After

Did context help? In reality the client’s salespeople and managers love this course. They find it extremely effective as an introduction to the device, and since it’s made up of many smaller lessons, it’s easy to use as a refresher, too. In case you’re interested, here’s how I designed the course. I even showed it at SolutionFest last year!

The Stuff That Résumés Are Made Of

April 22, 2014 By Jackie Van Nice 10 Comments

Select Image to Launch Demo

I’d recently been admiring some examples of graphic résumés, but couldn’t imagine how I could ever do one. Turns out Articulate’s resident nudger, David Anderson, keeps an eye out for that sort of thing and his challenge this week is to come up with an interactive résumé or portfolio. So time for me to figure it out.

I haven’t had much call for a résumé since I’ve been independent, but creating an interactive graphic where I could play with the idea of a résumé sounded like fun, so off I went.

Inspiration

My friend and talented freelance e-learning designer Donna Carson gave me edits for a bio I submitted with my DevLearn speaking proposals on Friday. The phrases she used made me want to both laugh and go conquer the world at the same time. Her description of my “fearless flair” in designing training inspired me to come up with “Fearless Designs!” “Bold Voiceovers!” and “Daring Development!” to describe what I do. For graphic inspiration I turned to old movie posters. They had the expressive graphics and cool details I wanted, plus they could handle the dramatic phrases I had in mind.

My Graphic Inspiration

Design

Graphics: To start, I pinned old movie posters I liked and chose a color scheme that resonated with me. You can clearly see I used the colors and rough layout of the Charlie Chan at the Wax Museum poster. For text callouts and credits I used elements based on other posters including The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms.

Theme: I chose a detective theme because I was drawn to the idea of Humphrey Bogart’s Sam Spade. He’s on the right side of the law, but still seems a little shady. (His line that the Maltese Falcon is “the stuff that dreams are made of” inspired this post’s title.)

More Graphic Inspiration

The Theater: I wanted an entry screen so that, once clicked, the user’s full attention is on the initial visuals, music, and animation when they hit the main screen – and having them click a ticket to get inside made sense.

The way the overall flow works is based on the little theater I practically lived at as an undergrad at Humboldt State University in Arcata, California. The Minor, off the little town square, was an old art house movie theater that changed its double or triple features at least three times a week. I spent a few thousand of the happiest hours I’ve ever spent in my life there, and got to see a gabillion classic movies like the ones that inspired this piece.

The Minor Theater

When it was cold out, you’d come off the street through a thick red curtain, get popcorn and admire the old movie posters in the lobby, then go through another red curtain to enter the theater. So I was seeing my résumé as one of those old posters in the lobby.

Audio: I wanted to bring it to life with sound. There are effects for audience buzz, curtains being pulled aside, cheers, applause, police whistles, sirens, screams, breaking glass, etc., but I wanted a theme song. The whole time I was working on this I kept hearing a driving theme somewhere between Peter Gunn and James Bond. Lucky for me I’ve got an “in” with talented songwriter, musician, and freelance e-learning guy Dan Sweigert who was able to write and produce the theme song in no time flat.

Content

Résumé Elements: I kept it simple and included my (boldly-phrased) skill set, education, experience, and the main software I use. The sections for education and experience were by far the biggest creative challenges, but in the end I was happy to find a quick way to blow through them that still maintains the tone and theme.

Brevity: I find it endlessly entertaining that each of the links from the main screen shows just one screen of content (at best) that makes the audience go wild. I wanted to get in, show a glimpse of just a morsel of my work, and get out.

See It In Action!

Enjoy the vintage-inspired goodness right here.