Join Brian Dusablon on May 17th and 18th as he presents at The eLearning Guild’s Elearning Accessibility Summit.
design
Training 2017 Conference
Brian Dusablon will be presenting his session, Design for All: Creating Accessible Learning Experiences, on Tuesday, January 31st, at 8:00am in Room 1A.
ATD TechKnowledge 2017
Brian Dusablon will have two sessions at the ATD TechKnowledge Conference in Las Vegas in 2017.
DISRUPT2 – Collaborative Design Studio
Wed, Jan 11 | 3:00 PM – 3:45 PM | Forum 22-23
Session Description:
Design Studio is a methodology popularized by Lean UX, in which long, detailed design cycles are eschewed in favor of short, iterative, low-fidelity cycles, with feedback coming from all members of the implementation team early and often. Get hands-on practice using this collaborative design method that engages your stakeholders to create the best possible solution for meeting the outcomes you’ve defined.
FR200 – Accessibility: Designing Learning Experiences for All
Fri, Jan 13 | 9:45 AM – 10:45 AM | Forum 14-16
Session Description:
Accessibility is about more than compliance. It is about making sure everyone can access what you design and have an equal opportunity to learn from it. In the real world, this can seem like a daunting task, and you are up for the challenge. Learn how to design for everyone. In this session, the speaker will present real-world scenarios and tell real stories about accessibility and how design can benefit everyone. Learn how to start the conversation with stakeholders, create accessibility standards in your organization, and teach others about designing universal solutions.
Application on the Job:
- Create more accessible e-learning and performance support content.
- Interview users more effectively.
- Create standards for accessibility within your organization.
Prototyping in Elearning
Prototyping is a vital step in the design process in many other industries. So, why don’t we use prototypes when we develop new content? Is it a lack of time? Is it that we are just converting existing material and we think we do not need it? Maybe, in some cases, we think we already know what the learner needs. Even if all that were true, we should follow other industry best practices and create prototypes for our content.
What is a prototype?
Prototypes can be created in many different ways. Create physical prototypes (also called paper prototypes) with simple office supplies to show the end user an approximate facsimile of the interface. The user interacts with the interface and the designer/developer is able to watch the interactions. The paper prototype gives feedback about mouse movement and the general layout. Since it is early in the design process, this feedback comes when you can easily change layout and element placement.
A second type of prototype is the digital prototype. Build digital prototypes with tools like Balsamiq or Moqups, tools web designers use to create wireframes. eLearning rapid development tools such as Captivate or Storyline could also be used to setup the digital prototype, though it’s often faster to prototype in standard presentation tools like PowerPoint or Keynote. Use the digital prototype in conjunction with the physical prototype as an added layer of fidelity. The physical prototype is somewhat abstract in that you are just trying to get the placement of elements down. Start to add real content to the digital prototype to achieve a more refined edition. A benefit of the digital prototype is the ability to share it with a wider audience since it does not require users to be in the same physical location.
Why are prototypes so important?
The primary goal of prototyping is feedback. When we receive feedback early in the design process, we can change things more easily and rapidly. It takes only a few minutes to alter the entire layout of a physical prototype. Prototyping also allows you to quickly test ideas with your audience rather than spending extra hours in the development phase. Once the physical prototype is set, create a digital prototype and refine it as you go forward. Then, when development starts , you have a clear path forward with the design. Use prototypes to get sign-off from stakeholders throughout the design process to reduce conflict and surprises when development begins.
Take the time to create prototypes during your design process. It will save you valuable time during the development process. Web design and app design have showed us that these methodologies are worth the effort.
Happy prototyping!
Related:
Weekly Update #003
What we’re doing this week:
After a busy couple of weeks, it is nice to settle down and write this update. We had a great time at xAPI Camp at the Learning Solutions Conference in Orlando. Sean presented on four of the current Development Tools (Captivate, Storyline, Lectora, and Claro) and their xAPI capabilities. The presentation was well received and led to some good conversations about the tools. You can read the xAPI overview of each tool at xAPI Quarterly in the Fall and Winter editions.
We completed and delivered our report reviewing 22 courses and LMS late last week. We are answering final questions for them this week, and then we’ll be writing about the project to show our work. We’re also moving into discussions about system architecture and designing and developing a “best practice” course for them to use internally. If you’d like us to review a course or courses, start here.
Brian’s trip to Africa to help implement a learning platform for disease surveillance training was postponed. Instead, he’ll be focusing on writing an article as a guest blogger for the RISC blog and working on conference proposals for DevLearn.
What we found interesting this week:
- UXPin tells how to create a 1 Page UX Design Strategy to guide your design.
- 5 Principles for Your Learning Design Toolkit.
- Bryan at eLearning Art talks to Connie Malamed about Visual Design Tips.
- Trina Rimmer started a discussion about projects that transformed you as a designer.
- Duncan Welder writes about writing xAPI statements for live learning events.