Better e-learning – Day 4: Tone of voice, style and character

After two long – but well spent – days focusing exclusively on improving your e-learning interactions, it’s time for something a little different.

Today we’re going to look at how we can bring your e-learning course to life and inject some personality into it. (For me, this is the really fun bit!)

As always, rather than simply tell you what I think, first of all I’m going to share what my webinar participants said when I asked them: what small changes can you make to your existing e-learning course to bring it to life?

Avatars are a great idea but within the constraints of our contrived scenario we probably can’t realistically incorporate these. They are a great aspiration though and something that’s definitely feasible in a more realistic situation – and don’t let the word ‘avatar’ put you off. It doesn’t have to mean virtual world style characters; many of the same benefits can be achieved simply through adding photographs of narrators or characters, for example.

Just as we found yesterday, there are more changes we could make to inject some life into your e-learning than we can possibly hope to achieve in a day. I’ve highlighted four that I think are quick, easy and high impact but ultimately it’s up to you to select the things that are most important to and will make the most difference in your organisation.

• Apply some imagination to your titles

It’s Thursday morning and I know your creative brain might need a little time to warm up, so we’re not going to get stuck into the detail of the text in your course just yet. Instead, let’s spend some time seeing what we can do with the titles.

I think this is a great place to start, because the course title has a big impact on first impressions. I suspect many e-learning courses are effectively nameless until they’re completed, when a descriptive but not particularly engaging label is attached. This makes me sad for two reasons. Firstly, the course title is your chance to set the tone for the learning experience and to make sure your learners come to that experience in a positive frame of mind. Secondly, coming up with creative course titles can be really enjoyable.

I’d recommend thinking about it throughout the project lifecycle, jotting down ideas as and when they come to you, rather than setting aside a particular slot in your schedule to come up with the name. Having said that, I am putting you on the spot now with a challenge to review and improve your course title. To give you some inspiration, here’s what we came up with when I gave my wonderful webinar participants the same challenge.

Everyone came up with very different ideas, and in this there is no right and wrong. Clearly you need to consider the culture and constraints of your workplace, but a brainstorming session like this might well throw up some ideas for pushing the bounds of what you can do within those constraints. It’s a great exercise for challenging yourself to be a little more imaginative.

So once you’ve come up with a refreshed and revamped title for your course, see if you can take this further. Review the module or unit titles, and even the individual screen headings, to see where you might be able to inject a little burst of creativity. Remember, this is a quick and easy way to change the atmosphere of the course and influence learners’ first impressions.

• Add contractions and shorten sentences

A friendly, conversational tone of voice is something that was suggested by a few webinar participants and this is definitely one of my top tips for improving an e-learning course. It almost goes without saying that an e-learning course which adopts a less formal and more natural ‘voice’ is more enjoyable and user-friendly than a very stuffy, formal course.

So how do you make your course’s voice more conversational? One of the easiest ways is to add in contractions: replace most instances of is not with isn’t, and so on. This reflects the way we speak in everyday conversation and is instantly easier and more pleasant to read. You don’t necessarily need to add a contraction in every single case; I’d suggest reading the text aloud to yourself, as this is the best way to discover where it sounds forced or unnatural. Those are the places where contractions will make the most difference.

Reading aloud will also help you identify any sentences that are too long and convoluted. If you’re struggling to get to the end of the sentence without taking a breath, perhaps you can rephrase it. These are quick and easy changes that really do have a big impact on the overall feel of your course.

• Switch from third-person to first- and second-person

How many courses have you seen which talk about ‘the business’ or ‘the organisation’ and the things ‘it’ requires from ‘its employees’? Regardless of the content, for me this instantly creates a ‘them and us’ impression and the feel of top-down instruction.

I’d much rather my e-learning courses were inclusive and personal, and I’m sure you would too. Your learners all work for the same organisation, after all, don’t they? Luckily, this is not difficult to fix. It’s just a case of reworking the text from third-person (‘the business’, ‘employees’) to first-person (‘we’, ‘us’) and second-person (‘you’). Yes, this will probably take a bit of time – and it’s important to be consistent so you’ll probably need to check it through a second time in case you missed anything – but it’ll be worth it.

• Add real-life examples or employee quotes

I’m probably being a little cheeky including this one as you couldn’t really do this on Thursday afternoon without having done some prior preparation. Nonetheless, you may well have some case studies, quotes and war or success stories from people in the business that are perfect for illustrating your key messages. Now is the time to dig them out and see where they might fit in. Just one or two will do, so don’t panic if you don’t have reams of examples to hand.

Obviously there are lots of different ways you could integrate this kind of material using animations, video, photos and audio. But even without much time or money, the benefit of this material can still be delivered simply by adding it in text format. It might just be a sentence or two here and there to illustrate a key point – perhaps highlighted using italics or bold formatting if you really want it to stand out. Even this low-tech approach will help add character.

So despite having no graphic design resource, we’ve made some significant changes today to the overall feel of your e-learning course, simply through making some subtle changes to the way things are written. You’ve now got a friendly, lively course that will make a positive first impression on your learners and maintain that impression throughout.

Better e-learning – Day 2: The right interactions at the right time

Today we’re going to take a look at the interactions in your e-learning course.

We’ll review what you’ve got, where they are (or where they should be, if there aren’t currently any interactions), and what they are focused on.

As before, we’ll break this down into four steps.

• Take a big picture view

We’re going to start with my trusty ‘screen type index’ tool. I’ve talked about this in detail in a previous post so I’m not going to harp on about it too long here. Essentially it’s a table that allows you to review the balance and distribution of interaction in your course as it stands.

But what are you looking for when you review your screen type index? How often or where should there be an interactive screen? I asked the people on the webinar this question and got some varied responses. What I found most interesting was that some people said interactions are best placed at the end of a topic area (either to encourage reflection or to test understanding) while other people said the best place was often at the start of a topic area (to get the learner thinking).

• Map interactions against the key learning points

Of course, there is no rule and both of these responses are valid. It’s certainly not a case of inserting an interaction every fifth screen or every seven minutes. For me, it’s about making sure that your interactions are mapped against your key learning points. (I’m talking about ‘testing’ interactions here – intellectually engaging activities – as opposed to ‘telling’ interactions.) Again, the screen type index is really useful in achieving this.

This is a slightly different variation on the screen type index: it includes not only the screen type but also the title and key message for each screen. Creating this table for your course will show you whether your interactions are focused on the most important topics. Peripheral or context-setting screens (like the second screen in the example above) probably don’t need to be interactive. But screens around key learning points are likely to benefit from ‘testing’ interactions (like the third, fourth and sixth in the example above).

Do you need to make any changes? If so, don’t panic that you need to create a new screen template: you don’t. Instead, look at the templates available to you already and find the one most suited to the content on the screen you need to tweak. It’s all about making use of what’s already in your course and adapting it so things are in the right place.

• Change fact-checks to scenario-based questions

So far this morning we’ve mainly been reviewing the current balance and position of interactions. This was important preparation and it’s great that we can be confident your course is interactive in the right places, but now we’re going to really get stuck in. Just because there’s an interaction included for a key learning point doesn’t mean it’s the right interaction – we need to ensure it’s testing the right thing.

The example I used on the webinar was that of a customer service course, which includes a topic on making a good impression. Let’s imagine you’ve already got a quiz question on this topic, which is great because it’s a really key topic area when thinking about customer service. But let’s look at the detail.

The question asks ‘how many seconds does it take to form a first impression?’ I’m not sure this is a good question for this learning point. The chances are the learner will just guess, or randomly select one of the multiple choice options. More importantly, even if they weren’t just guessing, this really isn’t relevant back in the workplace. Your learners don’t really need to know how long they have before someone makes up their mind about them, do they? This is just a (fairly pointless) fact-check.

I challenged the people on the webinar to come up with some better alternatives to this question. Here are their suggestions:

I think these are good responses, although I have a couple of reservations. I’m not keen on free text responses as a general rule, so would always prefer to have options. But in some of the examples above, it might be quite difficult to make those options sufficiently challenging and plausible. For example, if you had a list of examples which the learner had to separate into good or bad in terms of making an impression, I suspect this would be a fairly easy activity. The introduction of an ‘arguable’ category might well go some way towards increasing the challenge.

With this in mind, I might take the interaction a step further and ask the learner about the consequences of certain things (like not knowing the job title of the person you are meeting, or failing to provide an out-of-office contact). This way, I’d be helping the learner to understand why as well as how.

• Quick switches from tell-and-test to test-then-tell

So we’ve now got the right mix of interactions, on the right topics, with the right focus. We’ve also weeded out any unnecessary activities. That was quite a hefty job, so there’s just one more thing I want to do on Tuesday afternoon. We’re going to make some quick and easy switches that will result in questions driving the learning, not just recapping it.

Are there areas in your course where you tell the learner lots of stuff (theory, factual information and so on) before giving them something to do to check they’ve understood? If the answer is yes, there’s nothing necessarily wrong with that. As my webinar participants said earlier today, interactions fit well at both the start and the end of a topic – both have their place. But there are definitely benefits to putting the interaction first.

Perhaps there are some topics which the learner will have some knowledge of already – from previous training, or general work or life experience. In these cases, it might be worth putting the activity first – drawing on what the learner already knows and getting them thinking about the topic. Alternatively, if a topic is completely new to them, putting the interaction first is a great engagement tool when compared with pages of background and theory.

The test-then-tell approach also tends to result in deeper understanding and better retention. This is because it encourages intellectual engagement with the material, rather than simple memory recall. And it’s not hard to do: sometimes it’s as simple as swapping the positions of two screens.

With that, we’ve reached the end of Tuesday. Another intensive day, but a productive one – we’ve turned your course from something potentially tell-heavy and fact-based into something genuinely engaging and challenging. We’ve also made sure interactions are there for a reason, not just for the sake of it.

See you again tomorrow, when we’ll be sticking with interactions but looking at the options and feedback rather than the questions themselves.

Five tips for e-learning they’ll fall in love with

Willing and able learner (computer-literate, time-poor), fed up of meaningless encounters with outdated ‘CBT’, seeks a refreshingly different e-learning course offering that ‘special something’ for a fulfilling and enjoyable relationship with the potential to change the way I think and act.

 

• Must be respectful: don’t treat me like an idiot but don’t assume I know more than I do
• Good communication is essential: be clear, to-the-point and chatty (conversations preferable to lectures)
• Must understand and respond to my concerns: take the time to find out what matters to me
• Good sense of humour preferred: not too cheesy, but boring, corporate-drone types need not apply
• Must keep me on my toes: a thought-provoking and sometimes surprising relationship is most likely to lead to engagement

Image:  Michal Marcol / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Effective e-learning interactions: to tell or to test?

If you were at a party with these two people, who would you rather talk to? (Thanks to the ever-inspirational Cathy Moore for this idea.) I’d imagine most of you would be more inclined to strike up a conversation with the girl. It’s easier to engage with someone who asks you a question or invites your opinion than someone who talks at you.

Likewise, in your academic or professional life, are you more likely to remember (for the right reasons) a session that invites you to think and respond or one that comprises someone lecturing you? Again, I think most of us will be in agreement that a session that involves us is more engaging at the time and more memorable afterwards.

All this explains why one of the things most of us want our e-learning to be is ‘interactive’. In e-learning, as in life, interactions are more engaging and memorable than lectures.

But an ineffective interaction isn’t just ineffective, it’s also a drain on resources: designing, building and completing interactions takes time (and therefore money), so it’s important to do it right in order to maximise the return on investment. With that in mind, I thought I’d share one of my top tips for designing effective interactions that help to enhance the e-learning experience.

Not all interactions are equal

Some interactions (like the humble click-to-reveal, rollover or click-through photo-story) are perfect for enhancing engagement. They help to break up content into learner-friendly chunks and they start to turn a passive learning experience into something more active. But they don’t demand intellectual engagement – you can click through the whole activity without necessarily putting any thought into it. I call these ‘telling’ interactions.

Other interactions demand a little more from the learner. Yes, in theory, you could work through a drag-and-drop, quiz question or matching pairs activity (to name a few examples) without engaging intellectually, but it’s not so easy to do. This kind of interaction, when well designed, starts to mirror reality and encourage exploration, focusing on the actions and behaviours learners need to demonstrate in real life and therefore making the learning more meaningful and effective. I call these ‘testing’ interactions.

‘Telling’ interactions

For me, there are three situations in which you might decide to use a ‘telling’ interaction: to make content more manageable, to improve focus, and to bring something to life.

Think about when you’ve Googled something and found yourself wading through page upon page of information, making it impossible to identify the key points. A ‘telling’ interaction can help to avoid this kind of information overload. For example:

• An interactive map which reveals information about specific countries as they are clicked on is more easily digested by the learner than a static list alongside a small image
• Images of people which, when hovered over, reveal a series of benefits arising from a particular process has more impact and personal resonance than a bulleted list of company-focused benefits

A ‘telling’ interaction can also provide some structure to the learner and help them focus as they work through and assimilate lots of potentially detailed information. For example:

• A click-through photo-story in which two fictional characters discuss the application of a policy in context can guide the learner by tackling in turn the questions they are likely to have
• An illustrated timeline which animates and describes the steps in a process helps the learner take on the information in a logical way, rather than a static diagram which can be misinterpreted

Finally, ‘telling’ interactions can be very effective in bringing facts to life and putting policy and regulations in context. For example:

• A compliance course can be greatly enhanced by inviting the learner to click on and read a series of newspaper articles, taken from real life, which illustrate the context (and severity) of the subject matter
• A simple video scenario can show a process in action to clearly illustrate the relevance of the content, or even a regulatory breach taking place to illustrate how easy it can be to make mistakes

‘Testing’ interactions

Bringing facts to life can also be achieved through ‘testing’ interactions. For example:

• A drag-and-drop activity asking learners to distinguish between true facts and myths about climate change makes the statistics more meaningful and memorable than including a ‘handy’ crib sheet

But, for me, the best uses of ‘testing’ interactions are where it’s appropriate to challenge the learner or where it’s necessary to enable proficiency.

Very often as instructional designers we have to overcome not just learner resistance to the training itself but also unhelpful or incorrect attitudes and preconceptions about the subject matter. ‘Testing’ interactions can be very effective in overcoming these things. For example:

• A series of quiz questions, dressed up by using photographs of fictional colleagues making statements about equality and diversity which the learner must classify as true or false, can highlight early on that the learner doesn’t already know all there is to know
• A click-through photo-story illustrating a familiar performance appraisal scenario, following by a matching pairs activity in which each character must be linked to their strengths and weaknesses, encourages the learner to consider a range of perspectives

Where the objective is about changing behaviours and performance, rather than attitude or awareness, ‘testing’ interactions are the most effective way to achieve this. Ask yourself what learners need to be able to do as a result of the learning and focus your ‘testing’ interactions on those learning points. For example:

• An interactive video, whereby the learner directs the course of the conversation by selecting questions or responses in a multiple choice format between clips, means that an interviewing skills course mirrors reality and focuses on the key points
• A full-screen representation of a construction site which the learner must explore in order to identify the health and safety hazards effectively equips them to spot and avoid such hazards on a real construction site
• A series of sub-standard SMART objectives, each with one missing element which the learner must identify, is essentially a set of multiple choice questions but focuses on the learning points that need to be transferred back to the workplace

So both ‘telling’ and ‘testing’ interactions have their place and help to enhance the learning experience, as long as the decision of whether to tell or to test is considered and thought through.

What do you think: do you find it useful to categorise interactions to help you choose the right activity? If so, how do you group them and when do you use them? Or perhaps you have a different technique for deciding on what kind of interaction to use in a given situation?

Three steps (and nine tips) to compliance greatness

My recent survey of the e-learning and compliance communities highlighted three characteristics of the compliance e-learning we’d all like to see more of. 

It needs to be engaging, relevant and effective.

In user-focused terms, it needs to make them care, show them it matters and help them live it.

Here are my tips for achieving those three things.

Making them care

Why is it so important to make learners care about what they’re doing? If learners don’t care, they won’t take notice of what they’re experiencing. If they’re not taking notice, they’re not really learning. If they’re not learning, they won’t action it back in the workplace.

This matters from a business perspective too. If people don’t take the learning on board and apply it, they’ll continue to make the same mistakes or miss the same opportunities. So the business ends up paying for the training and the mistake or missed opportunity, making the training a wasted investment. So it really is in everyone’s interest to put the effort in to making users care about what they’re learning.

Here are my three tips for making them care:

1. Create a fresh, surprising, eye-catching design or concept to make users sit up and take notice; use the visual design to help overcome any compliance preconceptions they might have.
2. Banish the business speak (it’s not a legal document, textbook or academic paper, after all), keep it conversational, and have fun with the tone of voice and language you use.
3. Add some variety in the approaches, interactions and media you use, and give the learner a bit of control over the experience (the use of audio, or the path through the learning, for instance).

Showing them it matters

Put yourself in the learners’ shoes. If the e-learning screams ‘compliance’, they’re more likely to view it as something that the organisation is doing to cover its own back – not the best way to get them on board. (For instance, how many learners do you think will really care about the potential reputational damage or a fine that’s unlikely to directly impact them?)

Instead, you’ve got to design something that’s relevant to their life and work and shows them how the compliance issues impact them as individuals. If you want them to see it as more than a tick-box exercise, you’ve got to show them it’s more than a tick-box exercise.

Here are my three tips for showing them it matters:

1. Put the learning in context by designing scenarios in which the user has to make decisions or recommendations, drawing on high-profile cases or building in real-life anecdotes and stories.
2. Take a tip from the adverts, and put the really useful, surprising, interesting and practical stuff centre-stage; the theoretical explanations need to be there, but keep them in the background.
3. Group job roles into risk categories or use a pre-test to identify gaps in knowledge, then point each user to what they specifically need to know (information overload = disengaged learners).

Helping them live it

Finally, if an e-learning course is going to translate into changed behaviour and improved performance, it’s got to be effective. You’ve got to give the learners the skills and tools they need to implement the learning back in the workplace.

Again, this benefits both the learners and the business. The user will see the value of what they’re learning, and the business gets evidence not just of compliance but also of competence.

Here are my three tips for helping them live it:

1. Actions speak louder than words, so focus on behaviour and competence rather than knowledge and simple compliance – what do people need to do, stop doing, or do differently?
2. Ask first, check later: use questions to drive the learning and remember the Goldilocks rule (questions and interactions should be not too hard, not too easy, but just right!).
3. Design an ongoing experience, including links to other reference points or learning resources and providing a well-designed crib sheet with key ‘dos and don’ts’ and contact points.

These are just some starting-point suggestions, but if you keep in mind the three user-focused steps (make them care, show them it matters, help them live it) you’ll be well on your way to compliance greatness!

(You can see the slides from my session on user-focused design for gold-standard compliance training in my last blog post or on SlideShare.)

Image: Suat Eman / FreeDigitalPhotos.net