Context

Shooting Your Own E-Learning Background Images

August 16, 2014 By Jackie Van Nice 8 Comments

Select Image to Launch Demo

This Articulate challenge is to create your own background images. The idea is to plan your shots, shoot photos, then manipulate them to work in your project.

The Project

I wanted to share a software training piece I’d created at the eLearning Guild’s SolutionFest, but had to change both the branding and the industry before I could. That involved a lot of new development, including new background images and some video. Time for a photo shoot!

My Shot List

I scouted out a nearby business park and showed up with my shot list in hand. I’ll only share a couple of them in this post, but the shots I wanted and got were:

From the parking lot looking back at the office building with my vehicle in plain view in the center.
From the office building looking out to the parking lot with a field in the background.
Looking down the alley of office park building back doors, plus some closer shots of the doors.
A stop sign at the end of the alleyway.
A video focused on the stop sign, then quickly panning down the alley and back.

Image Manipulation

For the still images I cropped and manipulated them to match the style of the rest of the course, which I’d designed to de-emphasize the background to make it easier to focus on the content. Since I developed this in Articulate Studio ’09 it was quick and easy to use the PowerPoint image formatting options. I used a tan color and the “pastels smooth” artistic effect.

Shot #1: From Parking Lot to Building

For this shot I cropped the image so that the vehicle was easily visible between the characters so I could add the company logo to the door.

Shot #1: Original

Shot #1: Used in the Course

Shot #2: From Office to Parking Lot and Field

I wanted this shot to be very simple, with just a hint of parking lot stripes and nothing else to act as a distraction.

Shot #2: Original

Shot #2: Used in the Course

See The Whole Thing!

If you’d like to see the entire demo as I showed it at SolutionFest, which used all of the other shots on my list, you can view it right here. If you’d like to learn more about how I designed this project, all of the details are right here!

Call Center Software Training

August 16, 2014 By Jackie Van Nice 4 Comments

Select Image to Launch Demo

This week’s Articulate challenge is to share ideas for call center training, so I shared a sample of call center software training I did awhile back.

Context Included

In the original I included scenes to demonstrate why the customer would be calling and why it’s so critical that you’d be able to help.

Since this is a re-branded and re-industried piece it would take too long to recreate all of that, but to give you a sense of that approach I included an illustration of the lead source presentation. Beats a bulleted list any day.

More Than a Screen

The other idea was to wrap a little bit of context and interest around what would otherwise be a featureless computer screen. It had to be simple, so I just carried the characters right onto the screen.

See it in Action!

Though it’s a small sample, you’ll get the idea. The voiceover has been removed, but the transcript is in the player if you’d like to see it. Here it is!

Do I Have To Learn Everything Right This Second?

July 24, 2014 By Jackie Van Nice 14 Comments

Select Image to Launch Demo

This week’s Articulate challenge is to create an interactive organizational chart or a “meet the team” sort of thing. Org charts and the like bore the heck out of me, but I like the idea of introducing someone to their new team or job, so I went with that.

How Did We End Up On Vacation?

When you start a new job, you’re a stranger in a strange land. All I did was apply that situation to visiting a new place rather than starting a new job. In either situation, you need to get your bearings and figure out what’s going on very quickly.

Chunking By Importance

In this case I sorted the information by relative importance, but in a work environment it could be sorted by task or department or time increment or anything else. The idea is to break it into chunks that have more meaning and don’t have to be accessed all at once, since information overload is as good as no information at all.

The Interaction

I had planned on (and spent way too much time on) fleshing out the detail at the end. As time ran out I trashed all of that and fleshed out the front end instead. It was the right thing to do and it ended up being a good demo of how to present information like this – including how to present it in context and at the point of need. I like it.

Ready to Navigate Your Vacation?

If so, feel free to take this demo out for a spin!

Select Image to Launch Demo

A Non-Regulation Spelling Bee

June 2, 2014 By Jackie Van Nice 8 Comments

Select Image to Launch Demo

This week’s Articulate challenge, with a nod to the latest National Spelling Bee, is to build an interactive vocabulary quiz. It’s a great challenge because you can take it in so many directions.

Inspiration

Intro Screen

I looked at a lot of interaction types, but when nothing struck me I thought I could at least start by choosing characters to work with. That’s when I remembered I’ve got good stock images of children. When I started looking at extremes (who’s the youngest?) then thought about an opponent (who’s the most unlikely?) I suddenly had my theme.

Content

Going for ridiculous words and context sentences was the only way to do it, and the greater the contrast between the participant prompts, the better. Unfortunately, I have far more knowledge of goofball cop humor than little girl references, so I just had to wing it on the kid side.

Quiz Slide in Action

Design

I focused on designing a quick, clean interaction because it’s funnier. I’m pretty happy with it, given the time frame.

Building It

I always have to go back to refresh my memory about how to engineer these things:

Each question slide is actually a fill-in-the-blank graded quiz slide.
To capture the running game scores I created variables for KidTotal and CopTotal.
To add points to their scores, on the “correct” feedback layer I added a trigger that adds a value of 1 to the appropriate KidTotal or CopTotal variable at the beginning of the timeline.
To display their scores, I inserted reference fields on the scoreboards to show the current value of KidTotal and CopTotal.
I also created variables to take you to one of three possible endings based on the final score.
I couldn’t get the text entry screens to refresh after hitting Replay. Those kept holding on to whatever was entered in the prior round. I ended up adding a hidden results slide to create the needed variables so I could add a “reset results” trigger to the Replay button. That worked.

The Result

Select Image to Launch Demo

I think it’s funny. My clue is when I can’t stop laughing long enough to record audio, but it was pretty late at night, so maybe I was just punchy.

I hope you enjoy it – you can see it right here!

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!