Ashley Chiasson, M.Ed

Instructional Designer & Consultant

Instructional Design

Terminology Tuesday: Style Guides

I was inspired to write about style guides after seeing a very beautiful one for a current client. As dorky as it might sound, I get incredibly excited about style guides!

Style guides?!

Style guides are typically client-generated; however, I have worked for organizations where various departments (e.g. Instructional Design, Programming, Multimedia) contribute to the development of a client’s style guide. They are documented explanations and illustrations of stylistic options that are available for the product in development.

These stylistic options typically include approved logos and branding, colours (and corresponding hex values), appropriate fonts and sizes, and can even be so specific as to dictate the pixel width a highlight box must be or the screen resolution the product must adhere to.

Basically, the style guide dictates how your product should look/feel and is typically developed by the client in an effort to stay ‘on brand’.  Other elements can even include the tone of voice used (active vs passive) or grammar preferences.

But why should I be interested in these?

Now, I’m not saying you need to get giddy about a beautifully crafted style guide like I do, but what I am saying is that you probably should inquire as to whether your client has one. Why? Because doing so can save a lot of time and effort spent revising a developed product to adhere to the company’s branding standards. It can be very tedious changing fonts and sizes for large projects…

Another great thing about style guides is that they ensure that all team members (if there are more than just yourself) have the same information and are adhering to the client’s aesthetic requirements. This can yield an incredible cost savings when you consider the effort involved in reprogramming interactive pieces or re-developing multimedia assets.

Style guides also save you tons of time and guess work! The projects I’ve worked on that had prescribed style guides had a lot less back and forth stylistic revisions than those without. While designing different layouts and using different typography may be your jam, clients may feel like you failed to read their mind with regarding to determining their brand’s vibe. No one wants you to miss the mark!

Here are some handy resources:

E-Learning Challenge #48: Storyboard Templates for E-Learning

This week’s e-learning challenge is an interesting one…one that is often glossed over in discussions, but which has also been discussed at length (if you look for it): Storyboard Templates! Hooray! I’ve chatted about storyboarding vs. rapid prototyping here and created a jaunty time-lapse demonstration of the development of a very basic storyboard template here (along with a downloadable template – wahoo!), but I’m going to go through David’s questions and maybe even include some downloadable sample templates. GET EXCITED!!!

The Concept

Share an example of your preferred storyboard template and answer the following questions:

  1. How do you define scripting, storyboarding, and prototyping? Which method do you prefer?
  2. Do you use different types of storyboards? When do you use each?
  3. How do you storyboard interactivity?
  4. What are your top three storyboard tips for new course creators?

The Method

First, I considered my storyboarding preferences and sifted through my hard drive to locate some samples. I realized that I had previously included my preferred storyboard template (and by preferred, I mean most commonly used and/or adapted for use) here.

Then, I considered each question and jotted down some note for each.

The Result

By clicking here, you can download my preferred/most commonly used and/or adapted for use storyboard template.

  1. How do you define scripting, storyboarding, and prototyping? Which method do you prefer?
    • I previously defined storyboarding and prototyping over here, so I won’t bore you with a re-ramble of that post.  As far as scripting goes, I would consider this to be including verbatim onscreen text, narration, and or media element scripts for other developers (and/or yourself as an organization tool). When scripting audio narration, I also would define aspects of the script to clarify the verbatim narration (e.g. pronunciation).
    • I prefer rapid prototyping overall, but find it most effective with smaller projects, requiring less sign off from other individuals. With larger courses/products, I prefer to storyboard in a Microsoft Word template as it’s much easier (and cost effective) to modify a Word document than a developed file.

  2. Do you use different types of storyboards? When do you use each?

    • I do you different types of storyboards, but it really depends on the clients needs. If they’re able to visualize the overall course based on a detailed Word storyboard, I’ll do that. If they need something more visual, I’ll develop a visual storyboard in Microsoft PowerPoint or Articulate Storyline. If a complex branching scenario is used, I’ll refer to a Word storyboard in a task analysis template (e.g. where each cause and effect task is branched out appropriately). If the client requires an Excel template, I’ll cringe and comply (and sob).
  3. How do you storyboard interactivity?
    • My typical method for storyboarding interactivity is to create detailed accounts (occasionally supplemented with mocked up visuals – for complicated media descriptions) of the media and interactivity to be included on that screen. This tends me be adequate, but sometimes clients (or Subject Matter Experts) need more of a visual, in which case, I’ll do a visual storyboard using PowerPoint and include descriptions of the interactions or mock them up as much as possible (using animation effects) to convey a similar look and feel of the end product.
  4. What are your top three storyboard tips for new course creators?
    1. BE CONCISE in your onscreen content – no one likes scrolling (too much).
    2. Ensure all aspects required for development are accounted for within the storyboard (e.g. navigation, introduction, conclusion screens, interactivity, audio script) – it’s good to have a one-stop-shop approach to your storyboard templates.
    3. Be as detailed as possible in your media descriptions; often times in larger organizations, the storyboard gets handed off to a media developer and then maybe a programmer, and you want to be as detailed as possible to avoid back and forth communication regarding elements. Doing this will save you time, money, and frustration. AND – everyone will be on the same page (e.g. the media developer can get added context for a screen by reading the onscreen text, and the programmer has a better understanding of how to program the media interactivity by reading the media description). All aboard!

Video Demo: Articulate Storyline – Convert to Freeform: Emphasizing the Need to Double-Click

Double_Click_Demo

I was developing some neat emulations for one of my clients last week, when the client requested that I include an additional ‘feedback’ of sort to emphasize that the user must double-click if they merely single click during the emulation. Now, this wasn’t feedback-persay, so I didn’t include it in the feedback options, but I did struggle a bit getting the hotspot interaction to behave the way I needed it to, so I decided to do a little demo to explain how I had worked through this issue in Articulate Storyline.

To do this, I converted a screen to freeform (hotspot), and set up the feedback options to branch to the correct response and set the submission to behave on double-click. Initially, I had messed around with it by providing the correct hotspot and then putting a trigger on the base layer over the incorrect option, but then that would only show the prompt if the user selected the incorrect option – something that might not happen as often with 2 options versus 20 (as in the software). So to get the interaction to behave the way I wanted, I set up two hotspots in the convert to freeform editor: 1 large hotspot encompassing the entire screen, and 1 smaller hotspot encompassing the correct response. Then, I ensured the correct response was selected and saved.

When I returned to the development screen, I added a layer with some text “YOU MUST DOUBLE-CLICK!” and created a trigger on the base layer to display this new layer if the user clicks anywhere in Hotspot 1 (which in the convert to freeform editor was the incorrect hotspot which encompassed the entire screen).

On preview, we see that the screen now behaves the way I need it to. Single-clicking anywhere brings up the double-click layer prompt, double-clicking the incorrect option (in this case, Oliver, the dog) produces no response (in the software simulation, this brought up some feedback, but for simplicity, I didn’t include any feedback), and then double-clicking the correct option (in this case, Milo, the cat) takes the user to the correct slide.

Did my explanation confuse the heck out of you? Watch the demo, below!


Double Click Demo from Ashley Chiasson on Vimeo.

Terminology Tuesday: Formative vs Summative Evaluation

Argh! I swear I hit ‘schedule’ on this post, but I’ll go ahead now and apologize for the 24 hour delay…whoops!

Today I’m going to be chatting a bit about two types of evaluation: formative and summative. Now, I had heard these terms thrown around here and there working within my first corporate gig; however, it wasn’t until I began my graduate studies that these terms creeped up more frequently. I’m not sure if they’re traditionally education-specific, but if that’s true, they really should change that! Evaluation is a critical part of each course/product/project, and both formative and summative evaluations are essential to a comprehensive evaluation. Why? Well, just hold on to your horses and I’ll tell you!

Formative and Summative Evaluation Explained

Formative evaluation occurs when a program is rolled out to a small group of people (testers) and is sometimes referred to as a ‘soft launch’. Essentially, this allows the developer to obtain information regarding potential revisions prior to committing to a full launch. Formative evaluation is essential, especially when you’re a one-person show, because it’s really invaluable to have a second (or third or fourth) set of eyes look at something you’ve spent all of your time working on, as these sets of eyes will often times pick up small issues you may have missed in your quality assurance check. Additionally, these reviewers may also provide great insight into modifications that may enhance user experience. Sometimes it can be too late to incorporate these revisions, but often times it’s easy to make a compromise and include some of the smaller revisions while holding out on the larger revisions for a version 2 of the project.

Summative evaluation occurs after the program has been formally rolled out and are meant to assess the effectiveness of the program as a whole. This type of evaluation is important as it allows the developer to revise the program accordingly to achieve maximum effectiveness. In this situation, effectiveness is measured by how well the training program meets the requirements and allows learners to achieve the learning outcomes.

But who has time to evaluate each program?

Great question! Most folks barely have enough time in the day to get all of their work done (come on – Beyonce has a large team of folks helping her out, and it’s just little ol’ me over here), but even if a formal evaluation isn’t in the cards (which is an unfortunate reality for many of the programs I’ve worked on), you should still evaluate each project (internal) and stay on top of client feedback (external) as it will help you grow as a developer. You’ll be able to consult a list (or memory even) of lessons learned and these lessons learned may help to streamline your process in the long run…making you more efficient and getting you closer to success (which often means fewer revisions)!

Still confused? Here are some great resources:

Instructional Design and E-Learning Resources

I get a lot of questions about the products and resources I use the most, so I thought it might be easiest to develop a resource site that I can add and subtract from as it evolves. Full disclosure: there are several affiliate links throughout, but these are all products and/or resources that I’ve used, trust, and love. You’ll see this page featured in my navigation, so if you leave the site and come back, it will be very easy to find 🙂

Tools

Articulate Storyline and Studio – I am a huge lover and supporter of both suites of software; however, I have to admit that I prefer to develop within Articulate Storyline, often using Studio-developed assets to supplement aspects of my Storyline courses. The Articulate E-Learning Heroes community is one of the most active community I’ve been apart of, and I really appreciate how supportive everyone seems to be. Both suites of software are worth the investment, and if you or your organization are on the fence about purchasing licenses, I encourage you to try out the 30 day free trials.

Adobe Captivate – I won’t be the first to admit that this is not my favourite tool to develop in; I tend to find Adobe’s interfaces more difficult to navigate, but I will say that once you’ve mastered one of their program interfaces, you likely won’t have a hard time with others. I like using Captivate to develop software simulations and the most often used feature (which is silly given the robust-ness of the program) for me is the text to speech audio recording…I said it was a silly feature to use the most, didn’t I? Working with a military audience, I gained loads of experience using Adobe Captivate, and once you get the swing of it, it really can do prove to be a great authoring investment, especially given the reasonable licensing cost.

TechSmith Camtasia and SnagIt– I use Camtasia almost on a daily basis, and I love it! I will admit that rendering video is not one of my favourite tasks, but it definitely is a reasonably priced and robust program given the features it provides. You really can create some amazing videos using Camtasia, and I use it almost exclusively to record screencasts (because this allows me to avoid javascript update prompts and errors – which I would often run into as a Mac user, when using screencastomatic and screenr.com – sorry guys!). SnagIt was a life-altering piece of software that I first grew to love about five years ago. SnagIt allowed me to easily take screen captures and mark them up, or better yet (!) have my subject matter expert do – this made some incredibly complicated and headache-inducing projects (e.g. tracing electrical flow throughout aircraft components) INCREDIBLY easier. I know I will never get that year of my life back, but SnagIt helped keep me sane. Both of these products are amazing, and if you bundle them together, you get a discount. If you don’t want to bundle, they’re both great on their own – so great, that I have licenses for both my Mac and PC. So nice, I bought it twice!

Parallels – I haven’t been using Parallels long, but I’ve been bowing down to it since DAY ONE! Prior to Parallels, I was using Mac Boot Camp, booting to my Windows OS separately to work on all of my Windows-specific projects. Doing things this way without an optimization software like the Mitrefinch solution created a bumpy workflow process – I would have to either dual boot multiple times a day (incredibly frustrating when a client called and wanted to do an unexpected screen share and you had a ton of Mac windows open with work in progress) or I would have to hoard all of my OS-specific tasks to group together, which became quite unwieldy. Parallels honestly changed my life. Now, I can operate ‘in coherence’, and selecting a Windows-specific item will automatically open in Windows. I can have both OS’ open at the same time, and I’ve experienced no lag.

PancakeApp – PancakeApp is my project management software of choice; it has an aesthetically pleasing interface and is surprisingly easy to use. I will admit that it was head-bashing-on-my-keyboard frustrating to setup, but the support team is very quick to respond to any concerns, and the fifth install was the charm for me. This program allows me to easily manage my projects, clients, hours, and invoices – taking the fuss out of small business management and administrative poo poo out of my daily life.

Storage

Articulate TempShare – Articulate TempShare takes the fuss out of getting your Articulate projects online; just upload and pass along the link – the only catch is that the links will expire, so it’s definitely not a long-term solution (but still good for most uses).

Dropbox – Dropbox is fantastic! I use dropbox to share project files between myself and clients, to deliver projects, and even as a tertiary backup for my hard drive. The subscriptions (for the amount of space you get) are silly cheap, and you likely won’t fill it all up for a long while.

Google Drive – Google Drive is RIDICULOUSLY cheap for space, and is widely used. I do find my clients are gravitating more toward dropbox nowadays, but it’s still a fantastic resource and storage solution.

Education/Lifelong Learning

Lynda.com (Get 7 days of free, unlimited access to lynda.com) – Lynda.com is a fantastic resource for learning, and is SUPER affordable (given the enormous course selection); for instructional designers or developers, I would specifically recommend:

  • Up and Running with Articulate Storyline (by David Rivers)
  • Articulate Storyline Advanced Techniques (by Daniel Brigham)
  • Camtasia Studio 8 Essential Techniques (by Chris Mattia)
  • Screencast Fundamentals (by David Rivers)
  • Instructional Design Essentials: Storyboarding (by Daniel Brigham)
  • Up and Running with Captivate 7 (by David Rivers)
  • Captivate Advanced Techniques (by Anastasia McCune)

Discover Udemy’s featured courses!” target=”_blank”>Udemy.com – I was a user of Udemy before I began working with the interface. As a developer, Udemy is an extremely easy user interface and has a large-enough following that you can easily make passive (or active, depending on your goals) income publishing courses through the site. As a user, I find the interface very manageable – the information is presented in bite-sized chunks, and Udemy’s quality regulations ensures that all users are getting the best possible experience. Courses range in price, but there are many fantastic options; for instructional designers or developers, I would recommend:

  • Adobe Captivate 6 and 7 Training for Beginners (by VHOT Training Inc.)
  • Create Interactive Courses with Articulate Storyline (by Jeff Batt)
  • Learn to Create eLearning Courses using Articulate Storyline (by Prashant Kumar Gupta)
  • The ABCs of Instructional Design (by Debra Scott)
  • The Ultimate Mind Map Course for Education (by Sean Mitton)

Resources for use in E-Learning

Creative Market – I LOVE using Creative Market – there are tons of modern visuals available for purchase (e.g. illustrations, stock photos, hero images, fonts, etc.), and every week they offer a handful of free downloads (which ends up building into quite the repository if you hang around for awhile). But I think my favorite aspect of this site is that designers and developers are getting paid for what they’re producing…which sure, maybe you can get it for free somewhere, but everyone deserves a payday, how else are we to become top Chicago interior designers!

istockphoto.com – I remember searching Getty Images at the beginning of my web-design hobby as a teenager; now on the cusp of thirty, I can appreciate this membership approach to royalty-free images. Memberships range from 250-750 downloads per month, and are reasonably priced, especially if being used often for larger organizations.

E-Learning Heroes Download Section – The download section has been developed largely from submissions by E-Learning Heroes community participants. There are LOADS of resources for all Articulate products, in addition to course assets and administrative templates (e.g. storyboard templates). This is an invaluable resource and is constantly growing!

E-Learning Heroes Community – As previously mentioned, the Articulate E-Learning Heroes community is one of the most active communities I have been fortunate enough to be a part of, and you can find almost ANYTHING (related to instructional design and/or Articulate products) on this forum. And if you can’t, someone can definitely answer your questions!

ColourLovers – This isn’t necessarily an e-learning resource; anyone needing to select colours can really benefit from this site. I specifically like looking at palettes, because sometimes I’m not creative when coming up with colour palettes and there are a lot of folks out there who are – why exhaust yourself?! I’ve used these colour palettes in e-learning courses, on websites, and when painting the interior of my home.

E-Learning Books

Design for how People Learn – Julie Dirksen

The Accidental Instructional Designer: Learning Design for the Digital Age – Cammy Bean

Learning Articulate Storyline – Stephanie Harnett

E-Learning Uncovered: Articulate Storyline – Diane Elkins and Desiree Pinder

Small Business

Designer Scripts – Email Templates for Sticky Client Situations – My good friend Erin created this swipe file of email scripts for dealing with various sticky client situations; while you may not be a designer (perhaps you’re a business coach or a software developer), but if you run any sort of freelance operation or small business, these email templates are adaptable for almost any industry. And at $17 dollars, it is a steal. Just think of all of the cringe-worthy client situations you’ve been in…and how frustrated you were because you just couldn’t think of a way to deal with the situation. One of my favourite situations outlined has to do with a client requesting more revisions than originally agreed upon (come on, instructional designers, I know you feel me on the revision apocalypse). In any event, this is an ESSENTIAL investment in your business and will save you a ton of headache in the end!

Stress Less & Impress (by Leah Kalamakis) – Sometimes the hardest part of doing freelance work and/or running a small business is ironing out your processes. In Stress Less & Impress, Leah takes you through the steps (and provides helpful worksheets and a Facebook community) of streamlining your process, and while it may not be industry-specific, streamlining your basic processes will allow you to spend less time with administrative schtuff, and more time focusing on your clients and providing solutions to their problems.

Helpful Websites

The Freelance to Freedom Project – This is a website developed by Leah Kalamakis, wherein she provides helpful freelance information – from the trenches. She has an incredibly Facebook community that I participate in weekly, and of which I’ve been able to sub-contract out overflow work, when necessary. Leah is incredibly honest and supportive, and her blog posts address common freelance questions or concerns.

Be Free, Lance – Much like Leah’s site, Breanna provides a witty blog category, periodically updated with helpful freelance information. Her posts are informative and engaging, and I’m looking forward to her upcoming course (of the same name).

Random

How to Undo the Damage of Sitting – or what many may refer to as Desk-er-cize. Seriously – these exercises can help. A LOT. Stop complaining about your back pain now and do these exercises!

Terminology Tuesday: Assessment Items

Some of my first freelance roles were writing assessment items for various training materials. Namely, I wrote new driver training tests for each and every single state. This was a very profitable endeavour, and assessment item writing comes pretty easy to me, but you multiple each state by 100 (or more) and tell me how sore your fingers are after typing out all of those assessment items…that being said, I do still hold a place in my heart for assessment item writing.

What is this ‘assessment item’ you speak of?

Well. An assessment item is any item, able to be measured, which tests what (or whether) your learner has learned the material you have presented to them. Basically, each question in a quiz/test/exam/knowledge check, etc.

Most of us distinctly remember hand-writing detailed responses to long answer essay questions in high school…or filling out bubble sheet upon bubble sheet upon bubble sheet in our undergraduate degrees (at least if you majored in Psychology). Multiple choice, true/false, drag and drop, essays, long answer, short answer, fill-in-the-blanks – these are all types of assessment items (but certainly not the whole gamut).

Assessment items have different bits.

Assessment items consist of several variables: The stem (question) and the answer (either provided or needing to be written out) – in the case of multiple choice questions, there are also distractors .

In writing the new driver tests, I considered an assessment item to be the Stem, the Answer, and three Distractors. The stem would be the question (e.g. You arrive at a flashing red light. What does this mean?), the answer (e.g. you must come to a complete stop before proceeding when it is safe to do so), and three distractors (e.g. you must come to a complete stop and wait for the light to turn green before proceeding, you may proceed – slowly, you may only make a left hand turn).

There is much to consider when writing assessment items.

In the case of the new driver tests, the only real consideration was to be cognizant of the target audience (14-22 year olds) and write in a language for which they would understand, and to develop assessment items based on the individual state driver’s handbook.

However, I also have experience developing assessment items for college-level text books. For these items, I had to consider the content (the relevant chapter of the textbook) and write meaningful assessment items to test the learner, but I also had to consider the learning objectives for that chapter (to ensure I was assessing the learner in order to meet the learning objectives) and I had to consider Bloom levels. I previously wrote about Bloom’s Taxonomy here, and in relation to assessment item writing, there was typically a requirement to test to higher-levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy. No good college-level assessment is comprised entirely of recall (in my honest opinion).

But…how do I know I’m writing high-quality assessment items? Don’t panic – Here are some resources:

20+ Tips for Writing Great Quiz Questions and Response Options

Improving your Quizzes with Immediate Feedback

Constructing a Bloom’s Taxonomy Assessment

Assessment and Bloom’s Taxonomy

Best Practices: 30 Tips for Creating Quiz Questions

The Anatomy of Great e-Learning Quiz Questions