eLearning – Page 5 – The Logical Blog

March 7, 2017

eLearning : Three Tips For Better Color Usage

by Sally Cox, COTP

Tip #1: Be Transparent

Perhaps being transparent isn’t the best thing in real life. But in eLearning? Yes!

I use transparent shades under areas of text I want to highlight for the learner, but I don’t want it to be distracting in any way.

A transparent yellow is a choice I often use because it’s neutral and works with almost any color palette. Or, you can choose one of your corporate palette colors. Even a light gray can work well.

The objective is to draw subtle attention to the text, but still allow the learner to absorb the rest of the content on the slide.

Tip #2: Use Color to Train the Learner

Using a single color for all learner interactions is a great trick because your learner will automatically know they need to engage when they see that color. This is especially useful for beginners or learners who lack computer experience.

Setting all interactive elements to the same color scheme gives the learner the ease of quickly knowing when they need to engage with the content.

Tip #3: Use High Contrast

Regardless of what color you use, ensure that every piece of text is readable and that there’s plenty of contrast. It is imperative that every learner is able to read all of the content, including sight or vision-impaired persons. (They use screen reading software to interpret the text, and it’s got to be high-contrast to be decipherable.)

You won’t know what type of device your learner is using to view your course. Different monitor settings or brightness controls on mobile devices can alter the experience. Prepare for every scenario.

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Sally Cox is an Instructional Designer, Certified Online Training Professional, Adobe trainer, and eLearning professional through her company kreatable.com. She's an Adobe Community Professional and Adobe User Group manager, and her vast experience includes set designer for "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" in the 1980s, for WQED-TV, Pittsburgh.

February 23, 2017

Articulate Storyline: Enhanced Multiscreen Support

by Kevin Siegel, COTP

Articulate recently released Storyline 360, part of the Articulate 360 suite of products available through a subscription on Articulate's website.

If you've spent any time using Storyline 2, you'll find that Storyline 360 is just about identical. And while it's true that little has changed between Storyline 2 and 360, there are some subtle improvements in the new version.

For instance, there's access to the Content Library (I wrote about the Content Library last week). There is also enhanced support for multiple screens. In the image below, check out the five icons in the upper right of the preview window. By default, projects preview as a desktop user. However, Storyline 360 projects can be used by learners on several types of devices (such as desktops, tablets, and mobile devices). You can now use the Preview window to get an idea of how your content will look on those devices.

I'm curious to see what my layout will look like for tablet users. All I need to do is click the Tablet Landscape icon.

Not only does the slide resize to accommodate a Tablet, the Player (which was at the bottom of the Desktop version of the slide) becomes a mobile Player (it’s smaller and changes screen position).

I love the fact that it's now an easy process to get a reasonable peek at what my slides will look like on multiple screens/devices. I'm also happy to see the Player behave so responsively and reposition appropriately on different devices.

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Looking for training on your favorite eLearning tool? We've got you covered with an assortment of half-day and multi-day courses.

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Kevin Siegel, CTT, COTP, is the founder and president of IconLogic. Following a career in Public Affairs with the US Coast Guard and in private industry, Kevin has spent decades as a technical communicator, classroom and online trainer, public speaker, and has written hundreds of computer training books for adult learners. He has been recognized by Adobe as one of the top trainers world-wide.

November 11, 2016

eLearning: A Second Dose of Inspiration from Sally Cox

by Sally Cox

Last week I hopefully gave you a shot in the arm when it comes to creating your eLearning content. I am always on the lookout for fresh ideas to incorporate into my eLearning courses. Here are some of my favorite places to look for inspiration.

Adobe Behance

Behance is an online community of Adobe Creative Cloud subscribers. If you're looking for creative inspiration, there is a TON of it here. Use the search field to find people or keywords, and "follow" your favorites to see their latest works.

In the image below, I used the search feature in Behance to find infographics. I have found free templates here, along with a wide variety of creative projects.

Pinterest

Pinterest is an online community with an unlimited wealth of resources at your fingertips. And it's all free! Create an account and start "boards," where you store collections of links and images. I have many boards on Pinterest (@kreatable)–here's an example of my Infographics board.

Google

Good old reliable Google is another way to find inspiration–simply use Google or your favorite search engine to search for a topic. Use specific search terms to help weed out the unwanted content.

In the image below, I searched for "infographics" using Google. More specific phrase or keyword searches produce better, more refined results.

Twitter

Twitter is one of my favorite social media platforms (@kreatable) and searching on Twitter is super easy. In the image below, I've done a search on Twitter, looking for infographics.

Design books and websites

I recommend using design books and online resources. Websites like Smashing Magazine and Just Creative offer a wealth of creative inspiration. Find the ones that are tailored to your skill set and check them often for new and fresh ideas.

Here's a design book I love because it has lots of creative ideas. Connie Malamed's Visual Design Solutions is published by Wiley Press, and is available on Amazon.

Remember: Creative ruts are temporary. Create a list of things you can do to counter your lack of inspiration, and you'll be back on track in no time.

November 1, 2016

Adobe Captivate: Submit All

by Kevin Siegel

When a learner takes a quiz created with Adobe Captivate, failure by the learner to click the Submit button on each and every question is a recurring problem. Many learners don't realize that a question is considered incorrect if it's skipped. And the answer is skipped if the Submit button isn't clicked. How can a learner miss clicking the Submit button? I've seen learners select a correct answer, and then click a slide's Next button to move to the next question. Only after seeing the Quiz Results slide will a learner understand that clicking the Submit button was mandatory. By clicking Next, the answer was never submitted for scoring and was counted as an incorrect answer. Ouch!

I've gotten plenty of emails from developers wishing there was a way to ensure that learners didn't forget to click the Submit button. Fortunately, there is a Quiz setting available in Captivate that will help.

Choose Quiz > Quiz Preferences. From the Settings group, select Submit All.

The Submit button on every question slide will be replaced with a Submit All button.

Of course, the same learner who didn't understand the importance of clicking the Submit button will likely have the same issue with the Submit All button. The wonderful thing about the Submit All button is what happens should a learner click a slide's Next button on the last question in the quiz, or the Submit All button on any slide.

Check out the alert dialog box shown below. Thanks to the Submit All option, there's simply no way a learner can avoid answering every question.

After clicking the OK button, the learner will be required to go back through the Quiz and answer any questions that had not been completed. Once the learner has answered every question, the Submit All Answers button can be clicked while the learner is on any slide. Once clicked, the learner will see the alert dialog box below.

In a future version of Captivate, I'd love to see more information about which questions haven't been answered by the learner (in the first Submit All dialog box). As it stands now, learners will need to go through every question slide looking for anything that hasn't been answered. Nevertheless, the Submit All option is a step in the right direction.

Looking for Captivate training? Check out these live, online classes.

October 31, 2016

eLearning: A Dose of Inspiration from Sally Cox

What do you do when, as an eLearning developer, you hit a mental roadblock and cannot get inspired, no matter what you try? We all have situations like this (some of us more than others), so I would like to offer some tips for helping you get out of that rut and recharge with some fresh, new ideas. Read on.

Step Away

Sometimes, just a change of scenery or break from the mental pattern you are in can make a world of difference. Go for a walk, do some light chores, take a drive.

During one evening when I was having inspiration troubles, I took a drive to Carson Valley near Reno, Nevada, and took the picture below. I've actually been able to use the picture in a few of my eLearning courses. Score!

Make a List

I am an ardent list maker. I make lists for grocery trips, packing for vacation–and I make a to-do list every single morning. Even smaller tasks go on the list so, when completed, I feel a sense of accomplishment. Just making a list and working through it–no matter how small the task–can be very motivating. I write my lists by hand, but you can use apps like Priorities and other list making apps to get the job done.

Brainstorm

These days, I create a lot of infographics for my courses. When I need a little extra push to get inspired, I brainstorm. Here are a few ideas I use to get my creativity pumping.

List descriptive words that come to mind. No right or wrong answers–just jot down whatever comes to mind. Some of the silliest ideas can be reworked into something usable.
Think of what visuals you associate with the concept, and make notes and/or sketches about them.
Use pencil/pen and paper to sketch your ideas, and try variations. Keep your sketches loose and not too detailed.
Focus on the story or message, and don't get sidetracked.
Use mind maps (a graphical way to represent ideas and concepts) to get ideas flowing. Start with a general phrase in the middle of the screen or paper. Then start connecting ideas.
Create an outline, similar to a mind map, but in outline form. No sketching here, just your random thoughts in a structured format.

Next time: Resources for Inspiration

October 24, 2016

Adobe Captivate: Learning Interactions with Self-Hiding Instructions

by Jennie Ruby

Scenario: Your SME wants to put a ton of text on a slide. "It's all important!" she insists.

"Okay," you say. "But let's give the learner some control over the experience. Let's use a Learning Interaction."

The Learning Interactions in Adobe Captivate are very useful for presenting a lot of text by topic or subheading. In this article, I'll show you how to address both the needs of the project and your SME's concerns. For this project, we'll choose the Tab interaction.

Go to the Interactions drop-down and choose Learning Interactions. Then choose the Tabs learning interaction. On the resulting dialog box, double-click Title, and type your title. (Don't worry if your first double-click does not enable editing. These placeholders are notoriously difficult to double-click. Just keep clicking until the word Title goes into editing mode. Then type your title.)

Enter all of your text by double-clicking a tab, giving it a tab name, and then double-clicking the Button Content placeholder for each tab to enter your text.

When all of your content is in, click the OK button to create your interaction. Now preview it. It should work great.

However, let's go back to our scenario:

The SME is now unhappy because when you first arrive at this slide, the Tab area is completely blank. The learning interaction does not display any of its tab contents until you click a tab.

"How does the viewer know to click a tab?" the SME asks.

"Good question," you reply. "We could give instructions in the voiceover narrative."

"I'd rather see printed instructions on the slide," your SME says.

Now we have this challenge: how to create instructions and something to fill the blank tab area when the viewer first arrives on this slide, but without covering up the tab's text when the interaction is in use.

Captivate offers "actions" that can show and hide objects on the slide. We can create a text caption that will give the viewers some instructions. But how are we going to hide the text caption so the viewers can see the Tab text? We'll create a button along with the caption that will hide the text caption and also hide itself!

Start by creating a text caption containing the instructions: "Click each tab to read its contents." Format the caption and place it in the middle of the blank space on the Tab interaction.

Then from the Interactions drop-down, choose Button. In the Properties inspector, Style subtab, caption the button with the word Start.

After positioning the text caption and the button nicely on the slide, Select both the text caption and the Start button (shift-click should do it), and from the Edit menu, choose Group.

Select just the button, and on the Properties inspector, Actions subtab, set On Success to Hide, and in the Hide drop-down list, choose the group. While you are there, also deselect the checkbox for Continue Playing the Project. That way, once the button is hidden, the project will not proceed to the next slide before the viewer can click a tab! (Note: this assumes the project has a play bar that the viewer can use to advance the slide after viewing the Tab interaction.)

So far, you have a Start button that will hide the instructions and hide itself. But how can we make sure that these will always be visible on the slide to start with? After all, the viewer might visit the slide, hide the caption and start button, leave the slide, and then return. The solution is to add an On Entry action for the slide.

Click the slide in the Filmstrip, open the Properties inspector, Actions tab, and assign the On Enter action Show, and choose your group.

Preview your project, and each time you enter the slide containing your Tab interaction, you see the instructions, click the Start button, and then use the Tab learning interaction to view the text.

Result: The SME is happy, you are a success, and the viewers know exactly what to do when they reach this slide.

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Looking for Adobe Captivate training? Check out these live, online Captivate classes.

October 6, 2016

eLearning: Effective Use of Fonts

by Sally Cox

Different fonts evoke different emotions, and some fonts are more readable than others. There are lots of decisions to be made when choosing fonts for your eLearning projects. Here are a few of my thoughts, to help you make better font choices.

Serif vs. Sans Serif

Serifs fonts contain little "tails" on some of the letters, such as those found in Times New Roman. The word "sans" is French for "without," so a "sans serif" font is a font without tails.

Here are some common serif and sans serif fonts.

Sans serif fonts are commonly thought more readable than serif fonts, particularly when viewed online.

I have, on occasion, used serif fonts in my eLearning courses (if the client insists, I use the font they want and try to push back if the font makes things unreadable).

Here's an example of using a serif font for the headline and a sans serif font for the text below. I like this look very much! And proper hierarchy is used here as well (the headline is larger than the subheads… a logical progression).

Use Display Fonts Sparingly

Display fonts are unique fonts meant to be used in small doses. Mostly, they are less readable than regular fonts. And they are meant to convey a message, an emotion – more than what Times New Roman can say (no offense to Times Roman).

The image below shows a few examples of display fonts. These are certainly not meant for large amounts of text. Rather, they pack a punch for grabbing attention or evoking an emotion, so use them sparingly.

In the image below, notice the first two examples are using a display font that is inappropriate for the content. A law office needs a more conservative font than a surfboard manufacturer, right? Because the client requires a more conservative look to their branding, the third example would be the correct choice.

Easy on the Mixture

Don't overmix fonts. Three is the old-school limit, but I still think it's relevant.

Here is an example of bad typography. First, there are too many fonts in one place. In addition, the display font is used inappropriately.

Final Thoughts

The text is an important piece of the puzzle in an eLearning course. It should always be readable, high contrast, and large enough that mobile users will not have trouble deciphering it. Test your courses on a variety of platforms to ensure the text is readable. If the text in your courses is not readable, it won't matter what font you used.

September 21, 2016

eLearning: xAPI is Geek Free and Ready to Go

by Megan Torrance

In my previous xAPI article I pointed to the emergence of "geek-free tools and platforms" as the hallmark that xAPI is beginning to achieve main-stream status. This isn't the dumbing-down of the specification or possibilities it holds for the industry so much as it is the provision of accessible, entry-level ways to take advantage of xAPI as a stepping stone to providing deeper learning experiences across the whole enterprise. It's a progression of the industry toward more, toward faster, and toward better.

In the 1960s, Dr. Bruce Tuckman proposed a team development model that lends some structure to the conversation about xAPI. The thinking is that a team goes through more or less orderly stages of Forming > Storming > Norming > Performing as they become a cohesive unit able to grow, face challenges, solve problems and deliver results. The L&D community, in particular the xAPI community, while not a team, is appearing to follow a similar pathway as we move into a post-SCORM reality. Here's a slide I presented at the 2016 ATD ICE conference in Denver.

In the early Forming and Storming days of xAPI, there were no off-the-shelf tools that supported it. Just about every xAPI project getting press and conference time was a well-resourced, custom-built learner interface for a typically narrow topic area with custom-built data visualizations all in close connection with (it not developed by) the learning record store (LRS) provider. And I include TorranceLearning's own projects in this. Amazing things were happening, but there were a lot of geeks involved. The bar was set high. It wasn't the kind of thing that was within reach for many instructional designers, certainly not for those who needed a pilot project to prove their point about this new-fangled specification within their organizations.

The "X" in the slide above marks the spot we're in right now: on the left-hand edge of Norming. Here's the evidence:

Four leading courseware development tools have adopted the specification, putting the creation of xAPI statements within reach of the average elearning instructional designer/developer. Adobe Captivate, the DominKnow suite, Lectora, and Articulate Storyline all offer publishing capability for xAPI. They each provide a basic level of page and interaction tracking via xAPI, with DominKnow and Lectora offering even more flexibility around the creation of activity statements.
Real world example: ZingTrain, the training and consulting arm of the Zingerman's Community of Businesses, is building customer service training modules for their employees and to sell to their clients. The courses ask the learners to take what works well in Zingerman's food-centric business and make the necessary tweaks for it to apply to their own work, which could be in any industry. As the learners work their way through the material, they respond with the terminology that is suitable to their role. The course sends xAPI activity statements to the LRS for each screen view, each video view, and each interaction as part of its out of the box functionality. In this case the course will also send the response to each of the personal application questions. ZingTrain will then be able to use this data to get a better understanding of the language and usage of the concepts in their clients' worlds and adjust this and future offerings accordingly. (Note: We are building out this course in both Adobe Captivate 9 and in DominKnow Flow as a comparison of two different approaches to the mobile experience. Stay tuned for the grand reveal of the two projects in this blog. The screenshot below from Adobe Captivate 9.)

LMSs are integrating LRS capabilities alongside their SCORM engines, making it easy for organizations to adopt xAPI without an additional capital outlay or the disruption of switching learning platforms. The leading LRS-alone platforms are moving ahead full steam (Wax LRS, Watershed, Learning Locker, and Grassblade), allowing organizations to assemble a best-of-breed learning experience that all reports back to a single data source. Now LMS providers are adding integrated xAPI capability as well, alongside their existing SCORM and AICC support. Whereas a software selection process in 2015 for an integrated LMS/LRS was limited to a very short list of progressive providers (LearnShare, RISC, OnPoint Digital), the bigger players are working on their xAPI capability right now. 2017 will show a far different landscape.
Real world example: Why do you care about integrating LRS and LMS functionality? Because many organizations rely on the course catalog, enrollment, search and reporting functions their LMSes offer. When we have access to and collection of more and more data, reporting becomes the secret weapon, the killer app, the super power that the L&D team needs to wield next. At the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum, iBeacons identify student visitors to the iPads placed next to key exhibits. Throughout the students' interactions with the exhibit, the app on the iPad uses xAPI statements to capture data about their interactions, their responses, the time spent on each activity, and the curriculum standard related to the exhibit's science topic. This program uses the LRS embedded within the Museum's LearnShare LMS and leverages its geek-free custom report wizard to query and display details about the interactions. Museum staff have access to use their data without having to ask their vendors for reporting assistance.

Why the focus on elearning tools and platforms that look like learning management systems when xAPI promises to let us all break free of that hardened infrastructure? Tool providers in the learning space that didn't traditionally support SCORM tend to be (generalization there) slower to adopt xAPI but they are coming around as they see the silo-busting capability here. Not a month goes by that I don't talk with another learning tool provider about getting on the xAPI bandwagon. These providers are heavily invested in their own dashboards and data, but a few are seeing the value to their customers in allowing their data to enter the shared learning ecosystem. Examples? xAPIApps offers a ready-to-go suite of coaching, observation, live training, and assessment tools. Train by Cell is developing their xAPI capability and demoed a basic set of statements at the xAPI Party and TorranceLearning Download in May.

The xAPI space is a faster moving segment than the rest of the L&D industry. This article, while showing only a few narrow applications, should be outdated in a matter of months… and that's a good thing! Is it time to get on the bandwagon? If not now, it will be pretty soon. At this year's DevLearn conference in November and then TechKnowledge in January, a significant number of speakers and vendors will be talking about xAPI as the industry is getting ready to move.

September 13, 2016

Adobe Captivate: Object Level Audio Management

by Kevin Siegel

When adding audio to a Captivate project, you can add audio in a couple of different ways. For instance, you can import audio directly to a project's background or onto a slide. In the image below, audio was added to a few slides. You can easily tell that audio has been added to a slide via the audio icon in the lower right of the slide.

Here's a quick challenge for you. The image below is a closer view of slide 2 (shown in the image above as a thumbnail). Notice that there are several objects on the slide. Some of the objects include audio. Can you quickly identify which objects have audio and which do not?

The answer to the challenge above is no. While it's easy to see the slides that have audio (via the Filmstrip), there's no obvious way to see object-level or background audio. Never fear… while not an obvious feature, with a few clicks of your mouse, you can view and manage slide-level, object-level, and background audio across an entire project.

Choose Audio > Audio Management to open the Advanced Audio Management dialog box. In the image below, you can quickly determine which slides have audio and if there's Background (or project-level audio). While useful information, you still cannot tell which (if any) slide objects have audio.

Another quick click and you'll have that issue resolved… click the Show object level audio check box (in the lower left of the dialog box).

And like magic, the Advanced Audio Management dialog box displays audio for everything! At this point, you can play the audio files, replace them, remove, and even export them.

Looking for eLearning training? Check out these live, online classes.

September 1, 2016

TechSmith Camtasia: Multiple Object Formatting Made Easy

by Kevin Siegel

When developing eLearning, one important goal is to ensure consistency from object to object. In addition, unless you're a top-notch designer you should use just a few fonts and a limited color palette. (Lest you run the risk of creating an eLearning lesson that, despite your good intentions, is visually overwhelming to your learners.)

This week I want to show you an easy way to ensure objects used in a project are formatted consistently. The key to project-wide Camtasia consistency lies in the use of multiple tracks.

When I develop in Camtasia, I create several tracks and add similar objects to those tracks. For instance, I might add alert callouts to one track, speech callouts to another.

In the image below, notice that there are two tracks. The formatting of the callouts in Track 2 are identical so they're fine. Unfortunately, the callouts in Track 1 are a mess. Notice that each of the callouts is formatted differently.

The first step to consistency bliss is to lock the track that you don't want to alter. Since the callouts in Track 2 are fine, I locked the track via the lock icon to the left of the Track (the icon is shown below in its locked state).

A locked track is easily identifiable on the Timeline thanks to the diagonal lines (as shown in the image below).

I then selected all of the callouts in Track 1 by pressing [ctrl] [a]. (I could have also selected objects via [shift]-click (to select contiguous objects) or [ctrl]-click (to select non-contiguous objects). In the image below, all of the callouts in Track 1 are selected. It is worth noting that because I locked Track 2, pressing [ctrl] [a] did not select any of the callouts in Track 2.

On the Callouts panel, I changed the color of the selected callouts to Purple.

Still working on the Callouts panel, I then changed the shape of the callouts to a Filled Rounded Rectangle.

You can see the results in the image below. All of the callouts in Track 1 are now formatted consistently.

The big trick here was working with multiple tracks, combined with the ability to easily lock a track (eliminating the possibility of changing anything about objects in the locked track).

Looking for eLearning training? Check out these live, online classes.