Emotional Engagement

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

Can You Motivate This Monster?

June 29, 2014 By Jackie Van Nice 4 Comments

Click Image to Launch Demo

This week’s Articulate challenge is to create a quiz about an instructional design concept. I decided to create a quiz about Dr. John Keller’s ARCS motivational design model.

The Idea

As I brainstormed (heh-heh) how the heck to do it, I thought of the most basic concept of motivation, which is to spur the learner on: Provide him with a jolt of electricity, if you will.

The next thing I knew, Boris Karloff was staring at me as I carefully wired him up to car batteries. You just never know where a challenge will take you.

The Interaction

The idea is that you choose an appropriate design option for each of the four areas: Attention, Relevance, Confidence, and Satisfaction. I made them appropriate to this learner, pulling more from Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein than Mary Shelley’s classic novel, but it’s all about keeping me entertained.

Feedback Screen

You get feedback whether your answers are correct (motivated monster), or incorrect (unmotivated monster). I included some quick tips in the player with a mini outline of the ARCS model to help explain and/or lead you to the correct answers, too.

So Much More

I’d love to go over the many other scenes and ideas I had for this one, but at some point I have to call it a quick demo and stop.

I’ll also mention that my AA battery > car battery > single battery cable > neck bolt electrical circuit entertains me no end. I think that’s part of what makes these challenges so fun. You do a quick mock-up and it leads to the funniest improvisations.

Try It!

If you’d like to try using the ARCS model to motivate Frank, the interaction is right here.

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

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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.