Jackie Van Nice

E-Learning Goodness by Jackie Van Nice

Instructional Design

It’s Pantone Color-of-the-Year Bingo!

By 8 Comments

Select Image to Launch Demo

Select Image to Launch Demo

This week I took on two Articulate challenges: One featuring bingo, and one featuring Pantone’s new color(s) of the year.

The Idea

Pantone has been choosing a color of the year since 2000. I wanted to look back at all of them and make a game where you try to match each one with its name. Add the seductive allure of bingo and it’s “go” time.

The Inspiration Layout (Click to See Original Game)

The Inspiration Layout (Click to See Original Game)

The Design

Layout

David Anderson had supplied a few inspiration pieces in the bingo challenge, and I liked the way the LA Times laid out their Academy Awards bingo game. There was room on the side to add more info – or in my case quiz questions – in a nice, clean way.

Color Quiz Question

Color Quiz Question

Colors

Since Pantone’s current-year colors are Rose Quartz and Serenity – and since featuring them was part of the challenge – I only used shades and tints of those colors to build the game. The only other colors are the subjects of the quiz questions.

Quiz Question

To keep it as sleek as possible, I only posed one question at the beginning. That sentence, along with the easily recognizable bingo layout, explains the entire interaction and doubles as the question for each quiz choice.

Quiz Bluffs

Unfortunately, I found Pantone’s idea of cool color names to be a big snooze. Too bad, because that meant my bluffs needed to be pretty middle-of-the-road too. (Though I worked in a few to keep myself entertained.)

Sometimes It Takes a Spreadsheet

Sometimes It Takes a Spreadsheet

Building It

It’s built in Storyline 2 on one slide with roughly a gabillion layers. I used a spreadsheet to keep the details of each color (name, year, Pantone number, RGB and hex values, where I used them in the grid, etc.) easy to find. It also helped enormously when tracking each one and creating triggers.

Ready to Color Your World?

Give it a try! I predict a colorful Pantone “Bingo!” in your near future.

Select Image to Launch Demo

Select Image to Launch Demo

What People Love & Hate About E-Learning: Interactive Graphic

By 6 Comments

Select Image to Launch Demo

Select Image to Launch Demo

This week’s challenge is to create an interactive graphic based on a recent Articulate survey about what people love and hate about e-learning. So I did!

The Idea

The Original Infographic (Select Image to View)

The Original Infographic (Select Image to View)

Above all, I thought the biggest advantage of the interactive graphic would be to add a main menu so the user could quickly scan topics and jump to the details. It can be a struggle to scroll through a long graphic – especially on mobile devices – so the quick jump would be a plus.

The other thing I noticed was that even though the original infographic talks about love and hate, I wasn’t seeing much hate. So my other idea was to graphically represent that imbalance.

The Design

Ultimately I ended up designing it around two things: The idea and image of a scale to illustrate the imbalance of positive and negative survey results – and the idea and image of e-learning devices. After falling in love with a red vector scale, I let it determine part of the color scheme and most of the overall design aesthetic. That’s a pretty good scale.

I put the content detail on slide layers and let e-learning devices have a hand in presenting them.

The Influential Scale

The Influential Scale

Details On Layers

Details On Layers

Helpful Hands

Helpful Hands

Weighing the Results

If you’d like to see my interactive version of the survey results, you can enjoy them right here. And remember – if there’s something you don’t love about e-learning, you can be the change.

Select Image to Launch Demo

Select Image to Launch Demo

Making A Simple Voiceover Portfolio

By 6 Comments

Jackie's Voiceover Portfolio

This week’s Articulate challenge is to put together an e-learning voiceover (VO) portfolio. I don’t do voiceover-only work, but I’ll do VO if a client asks me as part of a design and development project. Can’t hurt to have a few samples!

Voiceover Samples

E-Learning Demo: Game Voiceover

My favorite sample is the Kid vs Cop Spelling Bee I created for a challenge, and it’s what I sound like late at night when I can barely stop laughing long enough to record – in case you have a need for that.

Cop vs Kid Spelling Bee: Select Image to Launch Demo

Cop vs Kid Spelling Bee: Select Image to Launch Demo

E-Learning Demo: Sales Voiceover

This intro is the start of a product sales training course to debut a new product line and get staff excited about learning more.

Product Sales Training: Select Image to Launch Demo

Product Sales Training: Select Image to Launch Demo

E-Learning Demo: Compliance Voiceover

This in the intro to my favorite sexual harassment course.

Sexual Harassment Compliance Training: Select Image to Launch Demo

Sexual Harassment Compliance Training: Select Image to Launch Demo

Audio-Only Demo: Podcasts

Here are a couple of audio-only podcast challenges I completed. They’d give you the best idea of what my voice usually sounds like.

Select Image to See Tracks

Select Image to See Tracks

Select Image to See Tracks

Select Image to See Tracks

David Anderson’s Questions:

1. How would you describe your voice?

The workplace-approved descriptions I can pass along are “expressive”, “reassuring”, and “professional” – and I even got a “velvet voice” not long ago. I’m good at capturing and conveying mood and tone.

2. What’s your recording setup like?

I use an Audio-Technica AT2020 desktop USB mic – seen in this post where I describe my setup and offer some recording tips. I either record directly into Storyline or Audacity – it just depends on what I need.

3. What types of audio editing do you offer?

I remove distracting breaths and ambient noise – but I’ve recorded and edited my voice for a long time and know that if I use too much of a noise gate or overdo post-recording noise removal that I can quickly lose the qualities in my voice that give it the character that people (including me) want. If the end product just ends up sounding like a computer-generated voice, there’s no point in me recording. So I take it easy on noise removal.