Making eLearning and Video Development Easier
Written by: Robert Parrott
Self-paced eLearning and video can be a highly engaging, interactive way to make your learners actually want to learn. That is, if it’s done well. Making that kind of multimedia for your learners can be complicated, so consider the following ways to ease the production burden on you and your team.
Begin With the End in Mind
As the second of Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People® suggests, you must know what you are trying to do before you can set a course in that direction. Conceptually, this means defining what you want to have created at the end— “a 5-minute video”, “a one-hour eLearning”, “a 30-minute webinar”, etc. Instructionally speaking, this means writing specific and measurable learning objectives. Your objectives are the outline for your training. They’ll suggest the sequence of content, the more likely length of your training, and where activities are needed.
Avengers Assemble
The Marvel superhero group The Avengers are most often successful against their foes because of their collective skills. Each member has a different specialty compatible with the other parts of the whole unit, making them stronger together. The team you assemble should fit the kind and size of production you have in mind and complement each other. A strong writer needs a strong editor, a strong developer needs a strong tester, and so on.
Be an Accessible A11y
Accessibility (a11y) laws require content, hardware, and software to perform a certain way to be accessible. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reports that more than 1 in 4 (nearly 29%) of United States adults have some type of disability. That’s a lot of people and a lot of kinds of disabilities to consider in your designs. To make sure ALL learners can learn from the same materials, incorporate accessibility features into every step of your process from the start. Create a color palette with high-contrast color combinations for text, backgrounds, interface features, and button state changes to be used throughout your project. Write succinct and meaningful alternative text for your images during the storyboard phase. Describe important imagery in your audio narration scripts so they can be understood even if they can’t be seen. This careful planning will help you avoid unnecessary rework (let alone a lawsuit) when errors are otherwise found during final testing.
Don’t Speak
To quote the band No Doubt, “Don’t speak, I know just what you’re sayin’ so please stop explainin’.” Audio is excellent for bringing characters to life, introducing slide content, giving learners clear directions, and adding context to slide content. But one of the main reasons learners like self-paced eLearning is because it’s SELF-paced. Reading slide content word-for-word forces learners to compete with the pace of your audio. Instead, use audio when and where it provides additional context. This approach is a more pleasant experience for your audience and saves you time when you need to update slide text because you won’t need to also update it in your narration and closed captions as well.
Summary
Smart decisions about how you design and develop your eLearning and video products can elevate good content to great content, and great content into memorable experiences. Use these great ideas to speed up your next production. Or, if you want help producing eLearning and video even faster, give us a call.
Contact Tom Ladenburg at [email protected] or 703-270-4176 to find out more about how Management Concepts can help you build custom eLearning and video for your organization.
