multi-device
Figure 2: Storyboard example
5. Be prudent with audio and video. Will clients be able to listen to audio and watch video on their devices? They may be watching on a data limited 3G contract and won’t thank you for using up all their allowance.
6. Tie related concepts together on one page as pages can be of different lengths. 7. Use visual headings, similar images, and colour coding to help reinforce related concepts.
8. Make more use of follow-up resources. Focus your screen content on conveying core information first, and then provide follow-up checklists, flowcharts, consolidation, and so forth via another medium. We know that learning isn’t just a one-off event, so let’s use our devices accordingly.
Pick your minimum device set Once you define what mobile learning and mobile responsive mean to you, you can decide on a minimum device set. This will distinguish between content that would work on a range of devices and apps designed to make use of a specific mobile device’s features. Most clients will just say that they want their content to work on their devices. This is never as straightforward as it may at first appear. Even in the corporate world where an organisation is standardised on (say) Blackberry, plenty of senior execs will still own an iPad or Android tablet and demand compatibility. When Logicearth recently surveyed its clients, the favoured device set was as follows: n Tablets; Android and iOS, with iPad mini as the minimum size n Phones; Android and iOS with iPhone 5 as the minimum size. This is important because it is helpful to avoid being ‘all things to all people’. At Logicearth, we focused on medium-sized devices and decided not to design for anything smaller than the iPhone 5. That was not just because it is what clients wanted. It is also because the smaller the screen, the bigger the cognitive load on the learner. It seems some things are just not right for learning on! It should also be borne in mind that if you design a specific app, then you design for a specific type of mobile learning experience. In doing so, it will demand a specific set of design skills to get the best from the device.
Discover your new design opportunities The good news is that old style fixed screen, click-next e-learning content is no longer king in the mobile world! The challenge, though, is that Instructional designers must learn and discover new visual design skills to provide better alternatives.
Content designed to work across multiple devices needs a more fluid, scrolling
format. This new world of multi-device content is more akin to web page or print design than our previous fixed screen approach. This is reinforced by the probable changes in language and design software for which you will be specifying. Instructional designers used to creating pages for Flash designers face new challenges with the limitations of HTML5 activities. Here are 10 design tips to get you started:
1. Like the modern web designer, you should embrace scrolling screens. There is a limit to how small you can make those buttons and you need all the real estate you can lay your hands on.
2. Think about the layout and ‘visual hooks’ on each page. As a multi-device instructional designer, you’re now more heavily involved with the visual aspects of the content than you were previously. Each content page is now a blank canvas on which you paint your learning concepts.
3. Design for the minimum device size first. Think about how text, images, and interactions will feel for the user on a small device.
4. Don’t forget that unlike PCs, most mobile devices can easily swap between landscape and portrait format. Users are also much more likely to ‘zoom-in’ on an item as well, so good resolution on an important detailed picture can pay unexpected learning dividends.
e.learning age june 2015
9. When you are writing your e-learning and you think the amount of text you have is adequate, reduce it by half again. This has probably always been sound advice. But more so now when your learner could be digesting your masterpiece on a 60 sq. cm. screen. Don’t forget also, the smaller the screen, the quicker the cognitive overload.
10.Your content will always look better on some devices than others. Just accept it.
Storyboarding for mobile learning A revealing storyboard is the basis of any creative visual content – be it a movie or e-learning. Mobile learning is no different. A good starting point is to find or produce a template that includes the page name and section name, along with the type of page and interaction template. This allows instructional designers and clients to visualise the flow of content. This is one of the biggest adjustments that your designer is going to have to make. Like other e-learning projects you can still use PowerPoint slides or any other storyboarding tool to do this.
Building scrolling into your design One of the biggest challenges for any instructional designer is not to just transfer fixed screen design ideas into long scrolling pages. Just repacking three ‘click next’ screens into one long scrolling screen doesn’t really cut it. You will not make the best use of the scrolling real estate. Perhaps even more importantly, it doesn’t consider how users interact with mobile devices. Tactile interactions – touch screen, swipe, and transitions – are much more characteristic of mobile content than static e-learning.
A good example of a longer mobile ready page layout design can be found at:
http://logicearth.com/comicstrip (you can try the interaction for yourself here). The page layout is a scrolling design, stepping the learner through Kate’s discovery of the reasons behind everyone’s barriers to becoming more energy efficient. This works better than splitting the story over several pages as it gives visual continuity and reinforcement of the overall learning concept.
Moving forward Today we have no option but to embrace this new multi-device world and up our game to create effective e-learning using the best of what other digital content designers are already doing. Learning professionals need to step up to standards of the world’s other creative institutions, such as advertising agencies and film production companies. There is a reason why they spend so much money on production and development. It’s because it matters.
Fiona Quigley is director of learning innovation at Logicearth Learning Services @logicearth
Crompton, H. (2013). A historical overview of mobile learning: Toward learner- centered education. In Z. L. Berge & L. Y. Muilenburg (Eds.), Handbook of mobile learning (pp. 3–14). Florence, KY: Routledge
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