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We will not be posting from December 20th through January 4th. We will resume posting on January 5th, 2009. We hope you have a wonderful holiday season and a safe and happy new year!!
| elearning | learning management systems |
| elearning podcasts | Competency Management |
Dave Boggs
SyberWorks, Inc.
SyberWorks e-Learning Podcast Series 
SyberWorks LMS e-Learning Implementation Podcast Series
e-Learning Lingo Podcast Series
SyberWorks Training Center Learning Management System
The next episode of the e-Learning Lingo Podcast Series is up! This week's word is "Formative Evaluation ".
On the e-Learning Lingo Podcast Series, there are three ways to comment on each episode. You may post a message to the blog; leave a web-based voice mail by clicking the button in the upper right-hand corner; or call in and leave a message about each show. You may find each weekly episode and its accompanying transcript on the e-Learning Lingo Podcast Series page located in the Media Center of the SyberWorks web site.
Press Release:
The e-Learning Lingo Podcast #75: "Formative Evaluation"
Blog:
e-Learning Lingo Podcast Series Blog
| instructional design | online training content development | accessibility |
| section 508 | interactivity | learning activities |
| elearning podcasts | usability | CSS Flash XHTML |
| semantic markup |
Dave Boggs
SyberWorks, Inc.
SyberWorks e-Learning Podcast Series
SyberWorks LMS e-Learning Implementation Podcast Series
e-Learning Lingo Podcast Series
SyberWorks Learning Management System
Here is an interesting post, Whatever Happened to Response and Objective data?
Excerpt:
"I have been reviewing some elearning materials for a friend and his not-for-profit and was astounded at how little effort was put into the learning objectives and assessing for those objectives. Needless to say the product was not one that I was impressed by but it did take me back to some of the rigor that I use to employ in my Instructional design and authoring days...
as part of our evaluation period, the elearning we had built and we would purposefully build in data collection at both the response level and objective level of the product to help us with our assessment. It allowed us to see what assessment questions and what embedded questions were working well and also what questions may need to be re-visited based on the weight of the data. e.g. a stronger correlation always appeared to exist between a poorly constructed assessment item and people getting the question consistently wrong. Not earth shattering but it did let us cut through the crap consistently."
We see those steps and others being skipped by our customers all the time. Many of today's developers merely concentrate on being adept at Flash or any of the other course development tools that are out there.
| instructional design | online training content development | accessibility |
| section 508 | interactivity | learning activities |
| elearning podcasts | usability | CSS Flash XHTML |
| semantic markup |
Dave Boggs
SyberWorks, Inc.
SyberWorks e-Learning Podcast Series
SyberWorks LMS e-Learning Implementation Podcast Series
e-Learning Lingo Podcast Series
SyberWorks Learning
Management System
Here is our latest press release and LMS e-Learning Implementation Series podcast:
Press Release:
SyberWorks LMS e-Learning Implementation Podcasts: Episode #22 2008 Holiday Wrap Up
Podcast:
Episode 22: 2008 Holiday Wrap Up
The holiday episode looks at the e-learning program rollouts discussed over the last year.
SyberWorks LMS e-Learning Implementation Podcast Series: Episode #22 Transcript
| instructional design | online training content development | accessibility |
| section 508 | interactivity | learning activities |
| elearning podcasts | usability | CSS Flash XHTML |
| semantic markup |
Dave Boggs
SyberWorks, Inc.
SyberWorks e-Learning Podcast Series
SyberWorks LMS e-Learning Implementation Podcast Series
e-Learning Lingo Podcast Series
SyberWorks Learning Management System
Whether you know it or not, designing a e-learning course involves an interface or UI design. If you think about the process that is involved in designing an application that you use on a daily basis, whether it's Microsoft Word or Adobe Photoshop, then you'll have a vague understanding of the importance of UI design. It may be difficult to remember what it was like when you had to learn those applications, but during your learning process, you became familiar with specific icons, drop-downs, toolbars, etc. that allowed you to be productive in the application.
Designing a UI for a website, although not nearly as sophisticated, presents similar challenges. Will it be a learned interface, where the user has to interpret the language and terminology you've chosen for your navigation? Trends in web use have allowed us to take advantage of a common 'language' in UI design. Examples of this would be nav links such as 'About Us', 'Contact Us', and 'Home'. A majority of users can relate to those navigation titles and recall similar experiences on other sites. If you decide not to use terminology that is similar to this, perhaps out of a shear desire to be different or to set a new standard, you may find your audience struggling to discover important data.
Knowing your audience is half the battle. Understanding how they will use your website is extremely important. User testing should be a mainstay in your design process. Jakob Nielsen has some pointers on his website useit.com for Usability Heuristics. These are proven techniques for successful interface design. Sure, user testing could cost you a few pennies, but the end result is that you have a report that you can use as guidance for improvement. Of course, you could conduct your own user testing. It may take more time for you to corrolate the findings into a report, but it's still worth it.
Some of the potential outcomes from an exam like this is finding out road blocks in your navigation, either due to poor arrangement or graphics that are iconic and lack meaning. You could find that there are Dead-end pages, breaks in continuity, lack of consistency (which is probably the most important tennet in design), or pages that offer little in the way of guidance. Depending on your audience, they may not be savvy enough to navigate, even though you assume they should be able to.
A user's experience with an interface may be, "I'm here, show me the goods." They expect to be able to get to your site and do what they need to do easily, quickly, and without a lot of fanfare. That might sound boring to you, but it's true. Steve Krug's book, "Don't Make Me Think" gives evidence of this phenomenon. Most user's don't want to sift through advanced hierarchical menus to find what they need. You should make it as easy as possible for them to accomplish a specific task. You can use those experiences in your user testing.
There have also been several conventions used in menu structure and navigation that are pretty common on the web these days. Using menu identification, breadcrumbs, or other such devices to let users constantly know where they are have a usability factor that may be greater than your actual navigation strategy. Consistency in navigation is paramount. I've been to several sites where you click on a menu item and find yourself on another page that has an entirely different menu. The only shared item is the Home link. Giving the user choice in navigation is also important. There may be several ways you can offer someone to get to the same thing.
We could go on and on about UI design and efficient navigation practices. Check out these 6 Interface Design Principles for an overview.
| instructional design | online training content development | accessibility |
| section 508 | interactivity | learning activities |
| elearning podcasts | usability | CSS Flash XHTML |
| semantic markup |
Al Lemieux
Senior Designer
SyberWorks, Inc.
SyberWorks e-Learning Podcast Series
SyberWorks LMS e-Learning Implementation Podcast Series
e-Learning Lingo Podcast Series
SyberWorks Learning Management System
Here's a sneak preview to our holiday wrap-up on the SyberWorks LMS e-Learning Implementation Podcast Series. Have a listen....
Time: 23 Seconds
| instructional design | online training content development | accessibility |
| section 508 | interactivity | learning activities |
| elearning podcasts | usability | CSS Flash XHTML |
| semantic markup |
Dave Boggs
SyberWorks, Inc.
SyberWorks e-Learning Podcast Series
SyberWorks LMS e-Learning Implementation Podcast Series
e-Learning Lingo Podcast Series
SyberWorks Learning Management System
The next episode of the e-Learning Lingo Podcast Series is up! This week's word is "Branching ".
On the e-Learning Lingo Podcast Series, there are three ways to comment on each episode. You may post a message to the blog; leave a web-based voice mail by clicking the button in the upper right-hand corner; or call in and leave a message about each show. You may find each weekly episode and its accompanying transcript on the e-Learning Lingo Podcast Series page located in the Media Center of the SyberWorks web site.
Press Release:
The e-Learning Lingo Podcast #74: "Branching"
Blog:
e-Learning Lingo Podcast Series Blog
| instructional design | online training content development | accessibility |
| section 508 | interactivity | learning activities |
| elearning podcasts | usability | CSS Flash XHTML |
| semantic markup |
Dave Boggs
SyberWorks, Inc.
SyberWorks e-Learning Podcast Series
SyberWorks LMS e-Learning Implementation Podcast Series
e-Learning Lingo Podcast Series
SyberWorks Learning Management System
Here is our latest press release and e-Learning Series podcast:
Press Release:
SyberWorks e-Learning Podcast 27: 2008 Holiday Wrap Up
Podcast:
Episode 27: 2008 Holiday Wrap Up
This year's holiday episode looks at the year in review and the various topics covered on the SyberWorks e-Learning Podcast Series.
SyberWorks e-Learning Podcast Transcript #27
| instructional design | online training content development | accessibility |
| section 508 | interactivity | learning activities |
| elearning podcasts | usability | CSS Flash XHTML |
| semantic markup |
Dave Boggs
SyberWorks, Inc.
SyberWorks e-Learning Podcast Series
SyberWorks LMS e-Learning Implementation Podcast Series
e-Learning Lingo Podcast Series
SyberWorks Learning Management System
Here's a sneak preview to our holiday wrap-up on the SyberWorks e-Learning Podcast Series. Have a listen....
Time: 23 Seconds
| instructional design | online training content development | accessibility |
| section 508 | interactivity | learning activities |
| elearning podcasts | usability | CSS Flash XHTML |
| semantic markup |
Dave Boggs
SyberWorks, Inc.
SyberWorks e-Learning Podcast Series
SyberWorks LMS e-Learning Implementation Podcast Series
e-Learning Lingo Podcast Series
SyberWorks Learning Management System
