training – Page 12 – The Logical Blog

October 27, 2013

Localization: Training & Development in Australia

by Jen Weaver

When we're talking about expanding your global client-base, knowing specific details about the culture, customs, preferences and traditions of your target market can have a profound impact on the effectiveness of your eLearning materials. Even in countries where the primary language is English, such as Australia, there can be many variations in the use of the language. Let's explore some of the common cultural facts about Australians and their expectations when it comes to training and development.

Test your General knowledge of Australian Culture:

Christmas falls in what season in Australia?
Australians typically prefer which approach to presentations?
1. Extremely detailed
2. Brief and to the point
English grammar in Australia is:
1. The same as American English
2. The same as British English
3. A mixture of American and British English

Quick Tips For Training & Development in Australia¹:

While English is the official language, the Australian accent and colloquialisms causes their language to stand apart. Want to throw some meat on the barbie?
It's common for Australians to shorten words to a single syllable and then add a long "e" at the end. This is how Australians are known as "Aussies."
Australians are typically driven by facts rather than emotion or personal feelings on the subject. Keep this in mind if your training hinges upon emotional tenets and be prepared to back it up with facts and statistics.
Personal lives are largely removed from the business setting and are not commonly discussed.
You may find it difficult to stress the importance of timeliness unless there are clear repercussions.
Australians tend to prefer modesty over boasting about their accomplishments and tend to value modesty in others. When possible, allow results to speak for themselves rather than discussing past achievements.
When looking for every-day examples and scenarios, use sports and local sights rather than political or religious examples.
If training in person, Australian proximity-distance is similar to the United States. Aussies prefer about two feet of distance when conversing, so be mindful of their personal space and don't get close like you would in many Latin American cultures.
While translation is not necessarily needed for training materials going to Australia, localization of key phrases and images may be beneficial.

Fun-Fact Answers:

Summer
(b) Brief and to the point.
(c) A mixture of American and British English.

References:

¹Morrison, Terri, and Wayne A. Conaway, Kiss, Bow, Or Shake Hands, 2nd ed. (Avon: Adams Media, 2006).

***

Developing training & development materials for in-country use? Contact Jen at Carmazzi Global Solutions.

October 16, 2013

Adobe Captivate & eLearning: Screen Reader Best Practices

by Kevin Siegel

Last week I wrote about some Best Practices for Creating Compliant eLearning. I'd like to follow up that article with information about screen readers.

Screen readers are programs designed to allow visually impaired learners to navigate through a website or eLearning lesson by reading the content aloud.

Two popular screen readers are JAWS (Job Access With Speech) and Window-Eyes. According to Microsoft, "Windows 8 has built-in assistive technologies that work with both Windows 8 applications and with desktop software to provide seamless access to the entire Windows experience."

If you'd like to see a review of some of the top screen readers, Top 10 Reviews has some great information. For instance, there's a section in the article that deals with compatible applications, something that is often overlooked.

According to the article, "This (compatibility) is one category that should not vary (between screen readers) no matter what your vision level is. You want your software to be compatible with the basics of your computer–word processing applications, internet, email, PDF reading–but not all screen readers are. The best ones work well with newer versions of Microsoft Office, especially Word and Excel. They also include at least two different internet browser options, usually Internet Explorer and Firefox. A variety of email applications is nice, but at the least the software should work with Outlook and Outlook Express."

Each screen reader uses different methods to translate screen information into speech. As you create eLearning projects in Captivate, you can certainly add accessibility, but you cannot control how a screen reader interprets the accessible components you add to any one lesson. For instance, you cannot force a screen reader to read screen text exactly when you want, or how you want. For that reason, it is best practice to test your projects with multiple screen readers and learn for yourself how each screen reader behaves.

Tips for Testing Screen Reader Compliance

Adobe has invested significant resources into Captivate to ensure the lessons you create have the capability of being compliant. And Adobe offers the following tips for testing your lessons for compliance:

If you are designing your projects to work with screen readers, download several screen readers. Then test each project by playing it in a browser with the screen reader enabled.
Ensure that the screen reader is not attempting to "talk over" places in your project where you have inserted separate audio.
Several screen reader applications provide a demonstration version of the software as a free download. Try as many as you can to ensure compatibility across screen readers.
If you are creating interactive content, test it and verify that users can navigate your content effectively using only the keyboard. Screen readers work in different ways when processing input from the keyboard. For this reason, your Adobe Captivate content might not receive keystrokes as you intended. Make sure that you test all keyboard shortcuts.

***

Looking for training on Adobe Captivate? IconLogic offers multiple live, online Adobe Captivate classes each month including Introduction to Adobe Captivate and Advanced Adobe Captivate.

October 6, 2013

Localization: Training & Development in Argentina

by Jen Weaver

In a previous article I discussed the importance of knowing your target market–their culture, customs, and expectations. This week I'll explore the cultural nuances of the Latin American culture, specifically in Argentina.

Test your general knowledge of Argentinean culture with the Fun-Fact questions below.

The __________ is the national dance obsession in Argentina.
Which type of business attire is most appropriate–especially in the capital, Buenos Aires?
1. Trendy. Only wear what is up-and-coming.
2. Conservative. If you want to be taken seriously.
3. Expressive. Clothing must represent your unique personality.
Compared with other South Americans, Argentines have a reputation for:
1. Seriousness and melancholy.
2. Joviality and happiness.
3. Outgoing and outlandish personalities.
Spanish is the official language, although many people speak English. Other commonly spoken languages include __________, __________, and __________.

Quick Tips For Training & Development in Argentina¹

As a culture, Argentines are known to have a high ranking in uncertainty avoidance² which may cause hesitancy to risk or change. It will be helpful to substantiate your perspectives with facts and statistics and allow time for confidence to build in the new initiative.
Visitors are expected to arrive on time for business meetings; but it is culturally acceptable for Argentine participants to be late, especially if they hold an important title or role. Keep this in mind when scheduling meetings or classes, and clarify if attendance is necessary en punto (on the dot).
Dinner, typically, does not begin until 10 p.m. on weekdays, so it is common to have coffee and pastries in the early evening (somewhere between 4:00-6:00). Be mindful of this should you hold a training class in the afternoon as this snack break may be expected.
Strive to maintain eye contact when speaking, and avoid placing your hands on your hips as this could be interpreted as anger.
Many Argentines have double first names (i.e. Maria Theresa) but may go by Maria, Theresa, or Maria Theresa. Until you are sure which name they use, it is safest to address them by their surnames.

Fun-Fact Answers:

Tango
(b) Business people should bring a conservative wardrobe to be taken seriously.
(a) seriousness and melancholy. To call someone or something "not serious" is a harsh accusation.
Italian, German & French

References:

¹Morrison, Terri, and Wayne A. Conaway, Kiss, Bow, Or Shake Hands, 2nd ed. (Avon: Adams Media, 2006).

²One of the cultural dimensions defined by Geert Hofstede.

***

Developing training & development materials for in-country use? Contact Jen at Carmazzi Global Solutions.

October 1, 2013

Adobe Captivate: Replacing Modified Styles

by Kevin Siegel

During my advanced Adobe Captivate class, I stress the value in doing things faster and more efficiently within Captivate. Take formatting objects as an example. In the image below, there are several text captions positioned on a slide. The formatting of the captions is something less than consistent.

In the spirit of consistency, I'd like all of the captions in the image above to look the same. To get there, I'm going to apply the same object style on every object. As I select the captions, I discover, much to my horror, that the developer who gave me the project did not use five different object styles to format the captions as I had assumed. Instead, the developer selected each caption, one at a time, and then manually formatted each one using the formatting tools on the Properties panel. (You can easily determine that a style was overridden by selecting an object and, on the Properties panel, observing the plus sign to the left of the style's name.)

Because the captions on the slide have been manually formatted (and the Default Caption Style overridden), my mission to ensure object consistency has now been muddied. Before I can apply a consistent look to the slide objects, I first have to reset the style back to the Default Caption Style. That's a simple job–all I'll need to do is select a modified text caption and, on the Properties panel, Style area, click the Reset Style tool (shown below).

The selected text caption will revert to the style assigned to the caption, without any modifications. The problem is that I'll need to repeat these steps for every modified object. If a project has a significant number of objects with modifications, this would take a fair amount of time rendering the process inefficient.

There is a better, more efficient way…

On the Properties panel, Style area, select Replace modified styles (this option is deselected by default).

Select a slide caption that contains the formatting you would like to use project-wide. On the Properties panel, Style group, click the Save changes to Existing Style tool.

You'll be prompted to confirm the action by clicking the OK button.

Every modified caption will be reset and will now follow the formatting of the saved style. (Compare the image below with the first image above and you'll see that all of the text captions have taken on the appearance of the selected object.)

If you would like to see a demonstration of replacing modified styles across multiple slides, check out the video I created on the IconLogic YouTube channel.

***

Looking for training on Adobe Captivate? IconLogic offers multiple live, online Adobe Captivate classes each month including Introduction to Adobe Captivate and Advanced Adobe Captivate.

September 25, 2013

Adobe Captivate: Pretest Actions

by Lori Smith

We recently introduced you to Captivate's Pretest feature. In this article, I'm going to follow-up with Pretests and teach you how to control a Pretest Advanced Action. Here's the scenario: your client or boss wants to ensure that all the learners know the material by passing a quiz. The boss doesn't care if the learner spends the time watching the individual slides that make up the lesson, only that learners are given a fair opportunity to pass the quiz.

You move forward and design an eLearning lesson that contains an introductory slide (slide 1), some pretest questions (slides 2 through 5), eLearning content slides (slides 6 through 50) and a final quiz (beginning on slide 51). If the learner is able to pass the Pretest right out of the gate, then you will not require the learner to review the course content. Instead, you will allow the learner to jump straight to the final quiz. However, if the learner fails the Pretest, the learner will be required to move through the course content before taking the final quiz.

While the scenario above sounds complicated to implement within Captivate, there is an action built within the Pretest that will get you started. Select any Pretest slide on the Filmstrip and take a look at the Action group on the Quiz Properties panel. Just below the Failure Levels drop-down menu you'll see an Edit Pretest Action button.

Edit Pretest Action button

Clicking the Edit Pretest Action button will open the Advanced Action window containing a basic advanced action.

Standard IF statement.

Let's take a look at what the action does. In the IF area, a System Variable named cpInfoQuizPretestScorePercentageis being checked to see if the learner's score is greater than 50. This means that if the learner gets over half of the points allocated in the pretest, he or she passes the pretest.

Take a look in the success and failure areas. Both are sending the learner to the very next slide (using the Go to Next Slideoption).

Standard Else statement.

In the images below, I have edited the Action so that it will use the Jump to Slide option. Should the learner score higher than 50, the Action will jump the learner directly to slide 51 (the quiz). Should the learner score 50 or lower, the ELSE segment of the Action sends the learner to the first content slide for the lesson (slide 6).

***

Looking for training on Adobe Captivate? IconLogic offers multiple live, online Adobe Captivate classes each month including Introduction to Adobe Captivate and Advanced Adobe Captivate.

September 20, 2013

eLearning: How to Pick a Font Set

by AJ Walther

Picking the best possible font set can be an elusive task for even the most seasoned of designers. So if you have the design prowess of a vacuum cleaner, the task may seem insurmountable. Never fear, I'm here to help.

Think of Your End-product

Are you designing for print or for on-screen viewing? Are you designing for people who will view your design from large, high-resolution monitors? Maybe for mobile? Knowing where your design will be viewed is a good first step. If you are designing for print publication, serif fonts (those with hats and feet like Times New Roman) are easier on the eye in large quantities. On the other hand, if you're designing for on-screen consumption, a sans-serif font like Arial or Verdana will be easier to read. If you know your design will be viewed on low-resolution machines (or if you're really not sure), it's best to play it safe and use as pared-down a font as possible. If you know for a fact that your design will be viewed on a large, high-resolution machine, your design options open up pretty drastically.

Here are some good options:

IconLogic: Font examples.

Note: You could really choose any font in the On-Screen (high resolution) section. I have highlighted a few that I would suggest using only if your end-product will be viewed on a high resolution screen.

Identify Your Message

Studies have shown that regardless of content, fonts can convey emotions and affect trust levels in viewers. For this reason, it is important to decide what kind of a message you want to convey right off the bat. There is nothing wrong with a fun, fanciful font…unless, of course, you're not trying to convey a fun, fanciful message. For instance, would you want to give access to your personal financial information to The Bank of the Universe if their website log-in met you with this font?

Bank of the Universe fonts

On the other hand, if you're logging your four-year old in to play an exhilarating afternoon of digital make believe on the Happy Princess Ponies webpage, this seems pretty spot on.

Happy Princess Ponies webpage

Here are some examples.

Fonts that set the mood

Fonts for Body Text

The bulk of your message will be conveyed within your body text. If you are designing content for unknown screen resolutions, you're going to want a sans-serif font that will be easy to read on all screen sizes and resolutions. Because you don't know what system your learner will be using, you'll also probably want to stick with the standard cross-platform fonts (you can Google if you're not sure which fonts these are). You're designing something to introduce new employees to your Fortune 500 company. That means you want something inviting, mature and professional. In short: Comic Sans will not do.

Here are some examples of fonts that would work well in this situation:

Fonts for body text

Fonts for Headlines and Accents

If you're going to get creative, this is the place. As a general rule, I try not to use more than three fonts for one project. This typically includes one for body text, one for headings, and one as an accent. Every case is different; however I'll have a need for a fourth font for subheadings. In some cases I'll use only one font throughout, varying the size and boldness for visual interest.

Want to know a secret to picking fonts that go together? The secret is that many software programs have already done this for you in the form of Font Families. You've decided on Arial? Excellent! Arial often comes with a family of coordinating fonts including Arial Black, Arial Narrow, and Arial Unicode. Here are some other font families:

IconLogic: Font families

These are just a few of the font families. Others include Minion Pro, Myriad Pro, and Tekton. Including font families with just two fonts would make for a much longer list and would include many fonts worth looking into if you only need two fonts.

You may notice that only using fonts that come with families could prove rather limiting. What about all those other family-less, but equally useable, fonts? Let Google help you! Google has an interesting, and underutilized, Fonts page. Here's how it works.

From the Google Fonts page, locate the Filters drop-down and select a category (Serif, Sans Serif, etc.).
If you'd like further filtering, adjust the Thickness, Slant, and Width slider bars accordingly.
Ensure the Sentence tab is selected from the top of the page.
From the Text drop-down menu choose either one of the pre-loaded phrases or enter your own text. If you have a specific design in mind, I would suggest entering your own text.
Here's where it gets really interesting. Pick any font that you like and from the bottom right of the font, click the third button, Pop-Out.
From the Pop-Out window, choose the third tab, Pairings.

Google has taken the liberty of pairing your desired fonts with other fonts that the mighty Google machine has deemed appropriate. This is a great feature and very useful for designing. The catch here is that Google Fonts do not correlate to fonts found in Adobe or Microsoft software lines. They are their own thing. If you like this Google method you have a few options. First, you could download the Google fonts. They're free and open source so you can use them without penalty almost everywhere. But, if you're unsure about your use case, be sure to check the licensing agreement to ensure that your intended use is allowed. Second, you could use a site like Identifont to plug the name of the Google font into the Fonts by Similarity tool and peruse similar fonts that you might already have on your system. (I tried this and had some success, but many of the Google fonts I entered were not recognized by Identifont.) Or third, you could just use the font pairings as visual inspiration and use that to return to your own fonts to make similar pairings.

Do you have any font secrets you'd like to share? Please post them below.

September 10, 2013

Adobe Captivate: Two-Bits for the Best Rate

by Kevin Siegel

You can easily record audio from within Captivate by choosing Audio > Record to. You can record audio directly to slide objects, a single slide, multiple slides, or the project background. Regardless of your choice, you'll find yourself in the Slide Audio dialog box.

After clicking the Device link in the Audio dialog box, the Audio Settings dialog box will open. This is where you have to make an important decision about your bitrate.

Captivate 5 bitrates

You have two choices in the Bitrate drop-down menu: Constant and Variable. Constant Bitrates (CBRs) produce smaller file sizes. By contrast, Variable Bitrates (VBRs) tend to produce audio with a higher, more consistent quality level than CBRs, but the VBR file sizes will be larger than CBRs. For that reason, most Captivate developers stick with Constant Bitrate.

Then you have to select from one of the four bitrate settings: CD, Near CD, Custom or FM. So many decisions… so little time. Bitrate is defined as the number of bits that are conveyed or processed per unit of time. Using a higher bitrate setting, such as CD Bitrate (128 kbps), will result in higher quality audio but a larger published lesson.

If you decide to use a higher quality bitrate than FM Bitrate, you should spend time experimenting with the options to see which selection sounds best to you. As a general rule, the FM Bitrate is more than adequate for eLearning audio that will be played through typical computer speakers or headsets.

***

Looking for training on Adobe Captivate? IconLogic offers multiple live, online Adobe Captivate classes each month including Introduction to Adobe Captivate and Advanced Adobe Captivate.

September 9, 2013

eLearning & Design: Want to be a Better Designer? Play this Font Game

by AJ Walther

Did you enjoy playing the color game from my previous article? Did it make you the best designer ever? Almost? If so, don't you dare stop there! Now it's time to focus on fonts!

Last week I was having a blog designed for my personal use. My designer sent over three header samples in three different fonts. I obnoxiously responded with, "These are great, but I'd really like to combine the round punctuation of Option One with the character width in Option Two and the line weight of Option Three. Know any fonts that meet this criteria?" My designer was not amused and more or less put the task back in my lap. I was soon perusing thousands of fonts and attempting Google searches like, "tall, skinny font with round punctuation and lowered middle 'E' bar" with no success.

eLearning: The Font Game

In my font search I did eventually find what I deemed to be a suitable font selection, but I also ran across The Font Game from I Love Typography which, if nothing else, served as a fun distraction. But beyond being a fun distraction, the game became a bit more. The more I played the better I got at quickly identifying fonts by sight and name. Being able to eye-ball subtle differences in fonts (as well as becoming familiar with naming conventions) ended up helping me more quickly scout fonts to get to what I wanted for my own design purposes.

The Font Game is an iOS app for iPhones and iPads. In this timed game, you are presented with a font sample and asked to choose the name from four options. High scores can be added to Apple's Game Center. In addition to the Font Game, the app includes the Terminology Game (for learning typography lingo), The Flip Font Game (like the original font game but reversed–you're given the name of the font and choose the correct one from four samples), and the Match Game (like the memory game, but with fonts). The app isn't free, but if you're a design junkie (or aim to be one), $2 may not seem like an unfair investment to you.

Do you love The Font Game? Do you hate it? Do you have an alternate method for learning fonts? I'd love to hear from you.

September 6, 2013

Adobe RoboHelp: Variables in Topic Titles

by Willam Van Weelden

User Defined Variables have been a RoboHelp staple for a few years now. You were first introduced to variables in this 2009 IconLogic blog post. As a review, variables are placeholders for text that you need to use throughout a RoboHelp project (e.g.: a product name). You might be using the product name thousands of times within hundreds of RoboHelp topics. Should you need to change the name of the product, you would have to go through the entire project and manually change the product name, one-by-one (or use RoboHelp's Find/Change feature).

As an alternative to manually adding the product name throughout a project and then having to worry about manually updating the text later, you can create a variable. The variable will display the product name as if it were regular text, and insert the variable within topics, snippets, the Table of Contents (TOC), and/or the Index. Should the product name need to be changed, edit the variable text via the Variables pod and it will be updated everywhere. It's a powerful feature and very easy to use.

In this article, I want to show you a fantastic enhancement to variables that was introduced in Adobe RoboHelp 10: the ability to add variables within Topic Titles.

In older versions of RoboHelp, a Topic Title was static text, meaning that you had to manually type the Topic Title when you created the topic. If you added the topic to the TOC, the Topic Title appeared on the TOC. But since the Topic Title was static, a change to the Topic Title when editing the Properties of the topic meant that you also needed to edit the text that appeared on the TOC. The ability to add a variable within the Topic Title means the text will be linked to the Topic Properties and will automatically update everywhere.

Add a Variable Within a Topic Title

After you've created the variable, display a topic's Properties dialog box. (You can display the Properties dialog box for the topic via the Topic List pod by right-clicking the topic.)
On the General tab, click the Variables drop-down menu and and select a variable.
In the Topic Title field, select the location where you want to insert the variable.
Click the Insert button.

Now that the topic's Title is using a variable, should you update the variable at any time, the variable text will update within the topic text, title, Index and the TOC.

***

Looking to learn RoboHelp? We offer a live, two-day online RoboHelp class once each month. Feel free to contact us to learn other ways to meet your RoboHelp training requirements.

September 4, 2013

Adobe Captivate: Add a Retake Quiz Button

by Kevin Siegel

I’ve had several students in my Captivate classes ask if it was possible to allow learners to retake a quiz. It’s not only possible, but the solution is very simple.

Choose Quiz > Quiz Preferences. From the list of Categories at the left of the Preferences dialog box, select Settings. From the Settings area, select Show Score at the End of the Quiz. (This will add a Quiz Results slide to the project, which is where the Retake Quiz button will appear once enabled.)

Adobe Captivate: Show Score at the End of the Quiz

With the Preferences dialog box still open, select the Pass or Fail category. From the If Failing Grade area, select Show Retake Button and then click the OK button to close the Preferences dialog box.

Adobe Captivate: Show Retake Button.

The Quiz Results slide will now include a Retake Quiz button. You can size and position the button anywhere on the slide just like any other button.

Adobe Captivate: Retake Quiz Button.

When the learner takes the quiz and fails, clicking the Retake Quiz button will automatically reset the quiz score. In addition, the learner will be taken back to the beginning of the quiz.

If you would like to see a demonstration of adding a Retake Quiz button to a project, check out the video I posted to the IconLogic YouTube channel.

***

Looking for training on Adobe Captivate? IconLogic offers multiple live, online Adobe Captivate classes each month including Introduction to Adobe Captivate and Advanced Adobe Captivate.