Part 3 - Illumen’s Guide to eLearning - The Audience

If we want to find the best direction for our eLearning course we must first know who is going to use it. We will call these people, or users, our audience. A single subject may be presented very differently depending on the audience that will use it. Once we know who the audience is, we can develop a course that relates information to their general interests and learning styles. By relating information, we can make a course more engaging, present content based on likely past experiences an audience has, and can look, feel, navigate, and deliver to a platform an audience enjoys using.

Your audiences may:

• be in Kindergarten, be in college, or be elderly
• have never used a computer, have computer experience using a PC or a Mac, be the definition of a geek
• Be surgeons, plumbers, presidents, mothers, fathers, or all of the above
• Have vision or hearing impairment
• Be in an environment without a keyboard, a mouse, a noisy environment, or a stressful environment
• Enjoy humor, reading, comic books, watching TV, or getting hands-on

So who needs to know how to change a bike tire? Let’s see… we have people who have a flat tire and we have people who may have just bought a bike and want to be prepared for a future flat tire. We can break the people with a flat tire into two groups: those who have an emergency situation (a flat tire on the road) and those that don’t (a flat tire in, say the garage). We may have managers of bike stores who want new employees to use this course for training. Finally let’s not forget that we are an audience. We could be site administrators, people who need to edit content, or people who need analytical information.

Let’s dig deeper. Through research (website analytics, survey, and discussions with potential users) we find that most the potential users will not be very familiar with the parts of the bike or tools used. Most will want to change their tire while following along with the course, and most would rather watch a video. There are some that actually need to learn from their phones or a print-out, as they are stuck on the road with a flat tire and in a bit of an emergency. Without going into the details of what the project might be, it is safe to say we have a great starting point that is tailored towards the audience.

For learning to take place with any kind of efficiency students must be motivated. To be motivated, they must become interested. And they become interested when they are actively working on projects which they can relate to their values and goals in life. - Gus Tuberville, President, William Penn College

Oh, That’s Interesting:
Personas are fictitious characters who represent unique groups of users. Once personas are defined, we can define better usability and learning methods based on how we believe a given group will use a given course. We test the personas against our ideas and strategies to have a better understanding of the end user interaction. More info: Personas

Part 2 - Illumen’s Guide to eLearning - The Goals

Our journey begins by first understanding why we are taking a journey in the first place. Goals are the core when developing a learning program and the strategy, all information, activities, and assessments orbit this core. Defined goals give us a basis for what is important and what would make the end results of our program a success. Goals are often two-fold. Not only do we have goals and objectives, but so should our audience. Our goals are often financial, important to business, important to health and safety, analytical, required by law, and/or political, while our audience may just want to learn, is required to learn because of their education or job, or, like in the case of our bike enthusiast broken down on the side of the road or a homeowner who suddenly has a broken furnace, placed in a situation where learning is imperative. Goals have levels too. We might have one all encompassing goal for the learner as well as goals that specify what we want to see in our program. Here is a quick listing of my goals:

1. Having been in a prior situation requiring I change my bike tire, and having thoroughly perused the Internet, I was unhappy with the level of information explaining the act of changing a bicycle tire. I want an easy, yet more comprehensive way to educate someone on how to change a bike tire.
2. I want to better inform the audience about the tools required, the process, problems that often or rarely occur, and finding why the tire may have gone flat.
3. Provide an additional printable or mobile solution that is accessible to someone on the road, without the luxuries of possibly the Internet or a screen.

A few examples of goals we may find in other learning programs:

1. My business has a requirement that safety in the workplace training is required for all new employees and for every employee every two years. They must take a five questions assessment and pass with 85% accuracy to not be put on leave.
2. I teach a business course about project management. My goal is to educate PMs on what is important when testing to become PMP certified.
3. I sell custom made watches and need to explain to people how to care for their watch, and manage their watch, such as how to change the time and change the battery.

We could talk about learning goals forever and it is easy for a discussion on goals to turn into a want/don’t want list of everything including the kitchen sink. Time to move on.

Hey, Further Reading:
Planning a Course (Define course goals)

Link: Creating a Quick eLearning Template

Tom Kuhlmann of The Rapid eLearning Blog had a great article on bringing a little life into an eLearning template. Check out the article (and the many other great articles) here.

How Illumen Develops Online Rapid Experience in eLearning and eTraining

What makes someone a professional? We could say time and experience but neither equates to the development of ability. We need to focus specifically on the skills someone needs to do a task or series of tasks well. Let’s break down the skills of a professional into their ability to manage situations, think critically, problem solve, and make decisions. How do they develop these skills in real life? Usually through trial and error and over a very long period of time. The more time, the more questions, issues, and interactions that occur. The more experience that is developed and the faster answers and solutions can be found to these questions and issues. We are always lucky when we find a good teacher or mentor along the way, but we live in a world that moves fast and with careers with high turn-over and new products that need constant training, we need ways to expedite the process and build rapid experience.
Read more

6 Ways to Extend User Experiences Through Mobile Devices

More people are using mobile devices to handle their everyday computer tasks. Given three minutes and my iPhone, I can check my work and personal emails, my schedule, the news, the weather, and sometimes even get in a game of Tetris. It, like so many mobile devices, is usable, engaging, efficient, informative, and scalable. This mobile convenience should carry through training and marketing solutions as well. Unfortunately, often due to certain limitations of each mobile device and their short shelf life, there is often not a credible mobile counterpart to most training applications. To bridge the gaps, here are 6 ways to extend the user experience of your web or CD-ROM based app through mobile devices.

1. Limit Your Limitations
   It is often said that the difficulty in developing mobile experiences is that there are too many custom devices, all with unique technologies that need unique solutions, and therefore too many limitations to justify the development price. In reality, you can often find that two or three devices, or types of devices, make up a majority of what your audience uses. This may not always be the case, but survey your audience, you may find out that that most use iPhones and Blackberries, or maybe they tend to use more generalized cell phones. There is nothing wrong with developing towards a couple specific types of devices if it makes sense. By understanding what devices are typically used by your audience, you can limit the limitations, save time and money.
   


Read more

20 Common Terms and Definitions Found in E-Learning - Part I

When dealing with training, education, and marketing solutions, it doesn’t take long before we start hearing words we may not know. Below is a list of 20 common terms and definitions.

1. Analytics
   Refers to the analysis and derivation of data into usable information or statistics. Analytics are often presented visually or numerically and are used to understand your audience, where they are succeeding, where they are failing, your site’s use, and any other number of variables.
   
2. Animation
   Animation can be broken into two areas. First, it can be presented as 2d or 3d, and in a realistic or stylized representation of objects, people, and places. They take place over time and are often used to visually describe a story, a theory, an idea, a process, a feature, or a benefit. Second, animation can be used within a user interface to lead the user’s eye to focus on something specific or guide them to the next section within a course. The iPhone is a good example of this.
   
3. Avatar
   A virtual representation of a user. Avatars take on many styles such as cartoons, real photos, and even an image of a favorite sport, hobby, pet, or event. Avatars can help users customize their experience and interact with others.
   


Read more

Thinking Critically Through Experiential and Environmental E-Learning

My first job was at an Arby’s. I learned how to make sandwiches, work the register, work drive thru, clean dishes, prep for the day, shut down the store, etc. I was taught how to make each sandwich, the correct order to place the ingredients, and how to wrap the sandwich. All this I learned from a book, a few triple laminated guides, and from making a few sandwiches on my own. I felt pretty comfortable and ready to make my first sandwich for the customer. What I wasn’t ready for was the 5 for 5 sandwich deal that was available. Five Regular Roast Beef sandwiches for $5.00 (a great deal compared to today’s prices). Suddenly on the sandwich monitor there were three 5 for 5 orders, a Super, two Arby’s Melts, and a Chicken Cordon Bleu. The Super needed extra sauce and the Cordon Bleu had added lettuce. Someone working the drive thru yelled back that they needed their Arby’s Melts first and that the second order of 5 for 5s needed cheese. I had limited space and limited time to make everything I needed. More sandwiches were popping up on the monitor. The frier and slicer were beeping. Customers were waiting and managers and employees were shouting. I was in a panic. What is going on? What goes on what sandwich? Did they say they needed cheese on the sandwiches? Do I have enough chicken? Was this worth making only $5.25 an hour? If I didn’t perform my job well we could lose time, lose money, and upset customers. This was real life and I didn’t have the experience I needed.

Read more

A Look at Personas

When defining the best solution to any project, one step within the discovery process is the creation and use of personas. User personas are fictitious characters who represent unique groups of users. We use personas to understand how different groups of users will use a website and application. By focusing on how a persona interacts with a website, navigates to content and through content, understands and retains the content, we can begin to understand the different user experiences that occur. These user experiences must fulfill the goals, objectives, and needs. This step can also help determine new goals, objectives, and needs as well as limitations users may have.

It is a good practice to find two or three user personas and one or two administrative personas. But each opportunity is unique and can derive any number of unique persona. First we must understand the different user personas. To do this we must understand the audience(s). This can be done by talking with our clients, their audiences, defining surveys, focus groups, looking at demographics, and general research. A lot of specific information can arise such as (to name a few):

Read more

RIApalooza Brings New Ideas to Developing Better Applications

RIApalooza is an annual meeting of designers, developers, managers, and creative professionals focused on the user experience and developing better rich Internet applications. This all day event  is driven by platform agnostic and PowerPoint-free presentations. Among the presenters are top technology developers and consultants from Microsoft, Adobe, Magenic, and Roundarch, to name a few. Their discussions involve theory and practices covering topics such as mobile applications, user experience principals, and social medias. These sessions conclude with an evening  meet and greet to network, ask questions, and continue discussions. And like last year, a free t-shirt for all those who attend!

RIApalooza is on Friday, May 8th 2009, downtown Chicago. Check out the RIApalooza website for details.

RIApalooza is sponsored by CD2, which is an Illumen sponsored user group focused on bridging the gap between design and development to create stronger, more engaging solutions and experiences.

Illumen and UIC College of Dentistry Team to Develop Haptics Simulator

The University of Illinois at Chicago College of Dentistry set out to develop cutting edge dental training simulations using haptics. Haptics is the science of applying touch sensation and control to interaction. These dental simulations would provide a new platform for training. The dental school needed anatomically accurate tooth and gum models that would reflect natural imperfections and irregulatirites when used in the virtual dental simulator.

Working with UIC’s leading dental educator, Dr. Arnold Steinberg, Illumen’s team planned to map out all key anatomical imperfections, build the 3D models, then test them for accuracy within the virtual dental simulator.
Read more