The Logical Blog by IconLogic

Localization: Training and Development in Egypt

by Jen Weaver  

Many events in Egypt's history have had an impact on tourism, but your business needs may still require training and development in Egypt. Let's explore some common cultural facts about Egyptians and their expectations when it comes to training and development. 

Test Your Knowledge of Egyptian Culture:

1. Is Arabic read from right to left or left to right?
2. True or False? Egypt is one of the most westernized countries in the Middle East.
3. The terms "Upper Egypt" and "Lower Egypt" are oriented to the flow of what famous river?

Quick Tips for Training & Development in Egypt¹:

• Never show the soles of your feet, as this is offensive to Arab culture. Be mindful of this when selecting images or when sitting in meetings. In westernized culture, sitting with your legs crossed is a casual and relaxed pose, but it's perceived as impolite in Egypt since the bottoms of your feet may show.
• The left hand is considered unclean, so avoid gesturing with your left hand whenever possible, and always use your right hand when eating and handling "clean" objects such as offering gifts or exchanging business cards. The "thumbs up" gesture is also seen as rude.
• The Islamic Sabbath is on Friday. The typical workweek runs Saturday through Wednesday. Be sure to clarify the class schedule when training in Egypt.
• While Arabic is the official language, many executives speak English or French as well. Translation will likely be required for any in-country training materials.
• The Islamic faith is the primary source of truth; then personal feelings or facts are considered. Be careful not to speak against the Islamic faith, as about 90% of the population is Muslim.
• Family contributes to an individual's core identity, and Egyptians receive honor, dignity, and security through their family unit. These three values are highly respected in Egyptian culture, so be mindful of them to avoid embarrassing your contact and risking the relationship.
• It's a common Arab business practice to keep foreigners waiting for meetings, especially since Egyptian culture does not value punctuality. It may be wise to either schedule only one meeting per day when first getting to know your Egyptian client or team, or allow a large buffer between meetings in case they are delayed. You will likely need an Egyptian agent to do business in Egypt who can also work as an advocate to help you navigate through your meetings.
• Egyptian humor is often self-deprecating, but be careful not to join in. Only an Egyptian can make fun of Egypt. 

Answers to Trivia:

1. Since Arabic is read from right to left, Arabic-language training materials start on the back page or back cover of the book unlike an English version. Make sure your handbooks or manuals have colorful illustrated back covers to engage readers.
2. True. Even so, business interactions with individual executives may range from westernized to traditional.
3. The Nile. Surprisingly enough, this puts Lower Egypt in the north of the country and Upper Egypt  in the south on the Sudan border.

References:

¹Morrison, Terri, & Conaway, Wayne A. (2006). Kiss, bow, or shake hands (2nd ed.). Avon: Adams Media.

 

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Developing international training and development materials? Contact Jen at Carmazzi Global Solutions.

Adobe Captivate 8: A Cleaner, Simpler User Interface

by Kevin Siegel   

Adobe last week announced Adobe Captivate 8, a significant upgrade to one of the top eLearning development tools in the world.

Over the past few years I've repeatedly heard a couple of complaints about Captivate. First, it was perceived as difficult to use. There were so many panels, pods, and toolbars it didn't take too much effort for the Captivate workspace to get cluttered. Sure it was possible to create a custom workspace, but that didn't seem to matter. The fact that a panel could be accidentally moved from one part of the screen to another was causing all kinds of drama.

Another major complaint was Captivate's lack of support for mobile users. You could publish a Captivate lesson as HTML5, but the way a lesson looked when viewed on different screen sizes wasn't something a developer could control.

Captivate users will be happy to learn that both major pain points have been addressed with Captivate 8. Shown below is the Welcome screen you will see when you first start Captivate 8. There are two tabs, Recent and New. After selecting New, you'll find the usual suspects including Software Simulation, Video Demo, and From PowerPoint. You'll also see a brand new... and very awesome... option for creating Responsive Projects (something I'll cover in a future post).

 

If you're a veteran Captivate user, you'll notice right away that in addition to the Welcome screen getting a nice redesign, there is no longer a check box in the lower left to permanently hide the Welcome screen. This may not seem like a big deal, but I can't tell you how many times I've heard from people using Captivate 7 and older who tell me that the Welcome screen is missing. It turns out that they've accidentally hidden the Welcome screen. And while it's easy to bring it back, I'm delighted to see that since it cannot be hidden that issue is gone.

 

You'll be happy to learn that projects created in Captivate 6 and 7 will open in Captivate 8, and those projects willautomatically be upgraded to version 8. However, once upgraded, Captivate 8 projects will not open in older versions of Captivate. Prior to upgrading, I suggest that you make backups of your legacy projects just in case you need to open them in the older versions of the software.

 

After creating a new project or opening an old one, your next discovery will be the clean Captivate 8 interface.

 

 

At the left is the familiar Filmstrip; in the middle is the stage (or slide... call it what you like). There's no Timeline, no Properties Inspector, no Library. There's no clutter at all.

 

Of course, the missing panels are critical to your success in Captivate so you'll need to be able to open them. Take a look at the bottom of the Captivate window and you'll see the wordTimeline. One quick click on the word and the Timeline opens at the bottom of the Captivate window.

 

 

Look in the upper right of the Captivate window and you'll find buttons that will show or hide both the Library and Properties Inspector.

 

 

You'll notice that you can open the Library... you can open the Properties Inspector... but you can't open them both at the same time. And you cannot drag panels around your screen like you could in legacy versions of the software. If you're a workspaces junkie, you're also not going to like the fact that you cannot create workspaces. No kidding. Visit the Window menu and you'll find Workspace > Reset Classic, but that's it. There's no menu item for creating a new workspace. Okay, so losing the Workspace feature is a bummer. But if you're really missing this feature, I've got good news. Visit Captivate's Preferences (Edit menu for Windows users; Adobe Captivate menu for Mac users) and you'll find an option to Enable custom workspaces/panel undocking.

 

 

Turn that option on, restart Captivate 8, and you'll be able to both drag panels around your screen and create custom workspaces.

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Looking for instructor-led training on the top eLearning tools? We offer live, online training on Adobe Captivate, Articulate Storyline, Adobe Presenter, and TechSmith Camtasia Studio.We can also bring the same great training onsite to your facility. Interested? Contact us for details.

Writing & Grammar: British versus American Punctuation

by Jennie Ruby 

 

Single quotes are used in American English (according to publication style guides) to indicate one thing, and one thing, only: A quotation within a quotation.

The lecturer told us, "John F. Kennedy once said, 'Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.'"

Small punctuation marks--the period or comma--are placed inside of any and all of the quotation marks. Questions and exclamation points go on the inside of the quote they pertain to.

In British publications, single quotes are used to introduce new terms that are being defined a certain way. In American style guides, we are advised to use double quotes or italics to introduce terms.

• American: A "relational" database consists of multiple tables.
• American: A relational database consists of multiple tables.
• British: A 'relational' database consists of multiple tables.

Take a look at these examples, and give them the correct and American punctuation. (British and international readers--feel free to give them the appropriate treatment for your writing.)

1. In a 'client-side' application, the accessing computer does the calculations.
2. The instructor said; "As Laura LeMay stated in the assigned reading, "For more control over your sounds, you'll need different software".
3. Her boyfriend said, "The top song on my favorite radio channel says, 'You are perfect in my mind", and I think it is talking about you."!
4. "The 'Wicked Ale effect'", according to my colleague, "Is a marketing technique for covering several media at the same time".
5. A picture placed directly in the text, rather than floating, is called an "in-line" graphic.

As always, please post your answers below.

***

Answers to the British versus American English spelling challenge are brought to you by Susan Czubiak.  Other correct answers came in from Deb Gilchrist, Karyn R. Smith, David Zimmerle, Barbara Kennedy, Geri Moran, Nichole Gladky, Lisa J. Stumpf, and Vera Sytch (in no particular order). Also, I received a couple of responses where I could not discern the choices (color coding or highlighting may not have come through), so I apologize if yours were correct and I have not given you the credit you are due. Please let me know, and send your answers again in a different format.

1. Colour / color
2. Gray / grey
3. Analyse / analyze
4. Toward / towards
5. Got / gotten (as in "They have not yet got / gotten their tickets.")
6. Among / amongst
7. While / whilst
8. Encyclopaedia / encyclopedia
9. Defence / defense
10. Offence / offense
11. Pretence / pretense

New 3-Hour Mini course: Creating Responsive eLearning with Adobe Captivate 8

Last year the sale of smartphones exceeded the sale of traditional phones; the sale of tablets exceeded those of desktop computers. This trend has led to a need for eLearning developers to create courses that can be accessed from both mobile and desktop devices.

The size of the screen that learners use to access eLearning lessons can vary widely. Consider the size of a typical mobile phone compared to the various shapes and sizes of tablets such as the iPad, Microsoft Surface, and Amazon Kindle Fire. You could develop several Captivate projects that contain the same content, but are sized to work on specific devices; however, the problem is that you’d have to edit and update several projects! Who wants to do that? Additionally, who could possibly consider every screen size for every device? Even if you could build lessons for every screen size known today… what about the screen sizes for devices that have yet to be invented?

As an alternative to managing multiple Captivate projects, with Adobe Captivate 8, you can now create a single, responsive project that provides optimal viewing, and an effective learning experience, across a wide range of devices and screen sizes.

Responsive design is an approach to development that allows for flexible layouts and flexible images and assets. While the word responsive was traditionally used for building web pages, now with Adobe Captivate 8, responsive design can be used to develop online courses that detect the learner’s screen size and orientation, and automatically change what the learner sees.

This class covers how Adobe Captivate 8 uses responsive design features. You’ll learn how to navigate the new Captivate interface, how to create responsive projects from scratch, and how to incorporate responsive training demos, simulations, and question slides into your eLearning courses. Additionally, you’ll learn about multi-device previewing and publishing methods.

Who Should Attend This Course?

• eLearning developers
• Instructional designers
• Content creators

More information.

eLearning: Creating Accessible Content

by Anita Horsley  

 

While I don't have a disability, I have experience, both personally and professionally, with people who have physical and learning disabilities. I have assisted people with developmental disabilities, and I volunteer for a Therapeutic Horseback riding program that helps children with disabilities ride horses. 

When it comes to eLearning, I develop content for many government and education organizations where Section 508 Compliance is required. Section 508, the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, requires all Federal agencies to make electronic and information technology accessible to people with disabilities.

If you want to make your eLearning courses accessible for everyone, it's a good idea to think about people who are hearing, visually, and dexterity (motor skills) impaired. Additionally, it's important to consider the elderly population and people who speak English as a second language.

Assistive devices provide a way for people with disabilities to communicate and train using technology. People who are visually impaired or blind need devices such as:

• Screen readers (Jaws, Window Eyes)
• Screen magnification
• Braille displays

People with hearing impairments need visual representation of auditory information such as:

• Closed captions
• Graphic displays

People who have mobility impairments may need:

• Alternative keyboards
• Keyboard shortcuts

Although creating accessible eLearning can feel like an additional task, the goal is to enhance your eLearning courses by ensuring that all learners can master the instructional material and meet the learning objectives. When learning is accessible to all types of learners, you are not only complying with regulations, but you are reaching a larger audience, upholding social responsibility, and increasing your effectiveness as an eLearning developer and instructor.

Note: This is the first in a series of articles covering accessible eLearning from Anita. Stay tuned for more! And if you'd like to take a 3-hour deep-dive into the best practices for creating accessible eLearning, check out Anita's live, online course. 

Adobe Captivate: Kill the Click Sounds

by Kevin Siegel   

I received an email from a new Captivate developer who was having a hate-hate relationship with the click sounds he was hearing in his Adobe Captivate demonstrations and simulations. He told me that in his demonstrations, the mouse was making an obnoxious click sound when a click occurred. In his simulations, the same click sound was heard every time the learner clicked a click box. 

The developer was desperate to disable the mouse-click sounds in his projects but was unable to find the option in Captivate's Preferences. While looking in Captivate's Preferences seems like a logical place to look for the click sound option, it's not there. Nevertheless, the solution is very simple. Here's how you disable the click sounds for the mouse, click boxes, and buttons.

To disable the mouse click sound in a software demonstration, select the mouse pointer on any slide. On the Properties panel,Options group, deselect Mouse Click Sound. 

 

To remove the click sound from every mouse pointer in the project, click the drop-down menu in the upper right of the Options group and choose Apply to all items of this type.

 

  

If you've created a software simulation with click boxes, you can easily get rid of the click sound for a single click box, or all of the click boxes in the project. First, select a click box on any slide. Then, on the Properties panel, Options group, select Disable click sound. 

If you'd like this change to affect every click box in the project, click the drop-down menu in the upper right of the Options group and choose Apply to all items of this type.

 

If you'd like to see a demonstration showing how to remove the mouse click sound from interactive objects and the mouse, check out the video I created on IconLogic's YouTube channel.

***

Looking for instructor-led training on the top eLearning tools? We offer live, online training on Adobe Captivate, Articulate Storyline, Adobe Presenter, and TechSmith Camtasia Studio. We can also bring the same great training onsite to your facility. Interested?Contact us for details.

Project Management: Documentation Maintenance

by Kiranmayee Pamarthy

 

Documentation projects are usually time limited, but the products they create need regular, ongoing attention to work correctly without becoming obsolete.

In many organizations, the project team, which has seen the project through to completion, may continue to have responsibility for the final product post delivery. What is the impact of such maintenance projects on planning documentation activities? And how should the project team approach such documentation maintenance projects? 

We always get to hear or read about how to create documentation from scratch, where we have the freedom and capacity to change anything, and we have little dependency on the technical team. None of these perceptions are true when we deal with documentation maintenance projects. Many times, such projects need to be completed in a very short time. They generally need immediate action, quick revisions, and quality output that satisfies the customer.

We need to realize that documentation is an integral part of the post delivery phase of a project, and keep in mind that we must do the following:

• Be aware that different types of documentation may need to be prepared for different customers of the same product.
• Don't wait to create and maintain documents until after the lack of documentation has hurt the project.
• Closely monitor the post-deliverable phase and plan for subsequent releases.
• Use the IDEAL model: Identify, Diagnose, Establish, Act, and Leverage.

 Maintenance projects can involve any or all of the following:

• adding or removing functionality and content.
• revising the layout, i.e., moving pages or whole sections to a different location in the document.
• reconfiguring the whole product for a particular customer.
• changing an existing functionality.

The documentation maintenance process should be viewed as iterations of any development effort.

Maintenance Release Types

Error correction: correct faults in a delivered system. Documents need to reflect change requests from customers or from the testing group.

Enhancement: improve performance or add new functionality. Document activity needs to begin very early in these types of changes since it will involve planning and deployment of additional resources. This includes roll-forwards from previous maintenance releases.

Mixture: a combination of error correction and enhancement.

Adaptation: adapt the system to a new environment.

The documentation may need to reflect error correction, enhancement, or a mixture of these. It is likely that more time will be spent on enhancement releases than on error corrections. It is always vital to plan the next documentation release so as to maximize the efficiency of resources and also improve quality of the document. Thus, it is very important that the documentation team is involved from the initial phase of maintenance releases.

Adobe eLearning Community: Maryland, DC, and Virginia. First Meeting Scheduled

I'm happy to report that the first meeting for the "Adobe eLearning Community: Maryland, DC, and Virginia" on the books: July 9, 2014 at Adobe HQ in McLean, VA.

Address: 7930 Jones Branch Drive Suite 500, McLean, VA 22102
Time: 7-9 p.m., Eastern.

We'll be posting information about the meeting via our Meetup space and our LinkedIn page.

I'm really excited to meet all of you in person (and online... we will be running virtual sessions for all of our meetings).

Localization: Training and Development in Ecuador

by Jen Weaver  

¡Hola! Let's journey down to South America and explore some common cultural facts about Ecuadorians and their expectations when it comes to training and development. 

Test Your Knowledge of Ecuadorian Culture:

1. True or False. Ecuador is South America's second largest producer of oil.
2. What is the official language of Ecuador?
3. What currency is used in Ecuador?

 Tips for Training & Development in Ecuador¹

• Don't discuss other Spanish-speaking countries with Ecuadorians. Ecuador lost half its land to Peru in 1941 in an invasion supported by the United States, Argentina, and Brazil. Ecuador was previously conquered by Spain and has also faced many border disputes with Colombia. Similarly, be careful not to exhibit a sense of American superiority, as many Ecuadorians are sensitive to this attitude.
• Ecuadorians tend to make decisions on a case-by-case basis rather than using universal laws or standards to guide behavior. Accordingly, an individual's faith or personal feelings may be viewed as "truth" independent of facts or data. Research alone will not gain buy-in from Ecuadorian learners; you must engage them on an ideological or emotional level.
• Family gives Ecuadorians a sense of stability, but personal achievement and individual status are more important than the success of a group as a whole.
• Despite government efforts to promote punctuality, most Ecuadorians view arriving 15 to 20 minutes late as still being on time. As a foreigner, you are expected to be prompt to all business meetings.
• At the executive level, many business professionals arrive at the office after 9:00 a.m. Keep this in mind and avoid scheduling meetings or classes before 10:00 a.m., if possible.
• Address Ecuadorian contacts by their professional title or formal name until invited to do otherwise.
• Ecuadorian time is the same as Eastern Standard Time, so if you're traveling there from the United States, you may be tempted to schedule meetings the same day that you arrive. However, allow yourself at least a day to acclimate if training on location in Quito--not for the time difference but for the high altitude.

Trivia Answers:

1. True.
2. Spanish. English is commonly used in business settings, plus there are many indigenous languages still used by the Amerindian population. Be sure to clarify the language needs of your audience before finalizing training materials.
3. The United States Dollar.

References:

¹Morrison, Terri, & Conaway, Wayne A. (2006). Kiss, bow, or shake hands (2nd ed.). Avon: Adams Media.

 

***

Developing international training and development materials? Contact Jen at Carmazzi Global Solutions.

Adobe Captivate: Preloaders

by Kevin Siegel   

 

I received an email last week from a Captivate developer who was concerned with how long it was taking for a published lesson to begin playing for his learners. The lesson wasn't all that big and wasn't that long (both things can lead to lesson bloat and increase how long it takes for a lesson to begin to play). He also verified that his web server wasn't the issue. In fact, lessons created by other Captivate developers in his company downloaded faster than his.

 

Once he told me that other content loaded with decent speed, I had a likely culprit: the Preloader and/or the Preloader percentage. I helped him tweak both, and he reported that his lesson is loading much faster.

 

Of course, if one Captivate developer can overlook the role of the Preloader, it's possible others have as well. So read on folks and let's delve into Preloaders and how to control them.

 

What's a Preloader?

 

When a learner clicks the link to start an eLearning lesson, the lesson will rarely begin playing right away. Why? A specific percentage of the lesson needs to download before the lesson will play. The time it takes for that percentage to be reached depends on a few things: the size of the lesson, the speed of the learner's internet connection, and the capacity of the server to send the data to the learner (bandwidth).

Captivate's Preloader feature allows you to both control what the learner sees as they wait for the lesson to begin playing, and the percentage of the lesson that must be downloaded before the lesson will begin to play. 

Captivate ships with a few Preloaders you can use when you publish your lesson. However, many of my corporate customers prefer to brand the lesson and use their corporate logos as the Preloader. You can accomplish the task easily enough. First, with a project open, display Captivate's Preferences (Edit > Preferences for Windows users; Adobe Captivate > Preferences for Macintosh users). Then select the Start and End category from the Project group.

To load your corporate logo and use it as a Preloader, click the Browse button to the right of Preloader. Find and open your logo. You can use any of the following formats as a Preloader: jpeg, gif, bmp, wmf, or swf.

To control how much of the lesson must be downloaded before it will begin to play, change the Preloader % value. The higher the Preloader percentage, the longer the learner will have to wait before seeing the lesson. If you set the Preloader % lower, the lesson will play sooner. However, since little of the lesson will have been received by the learner, the lesson with sputter along instead of playing smoothly. If you set the percentage too high, the learner will have to wait for the lesson to begin playing at all. A best practice would be to set the Preloader somewhere in the middle. I typically set my Preloader % to 50, which tends to work quite well.



Once you publish your lesson, the Preloader image will appear for your learners until the Preloader % is reached.

 

If you'd like to see a demonstration on adding a preloader to a Captivate project, check out the video I created on IconLogic's YouTube channel.

***

Looking for instructor-led training on the top eLearning tools? We offer live, online training on Adobe Captivate, Articulate Storyline, Adobe Presenter, and TechSmith Camtasia Studio.We can also bring the same great training onsite to your facility. Interested? Contact us for details.