We at Saffron don’t like to pigeon hole ourselves as simply training providers. Yes, we design and develop e-learning, but we do a whole lot more than that too. We’re all about performance improvement and people productivity, and there are more ways to achieve those things than training alone.

In this day and age, with advances in technology opening up all kinds of new possibilities every week, isn’t it time we all broadened our minds a little and started looking beyond training?

For instance, in the past it might have taken days or weeks to notify an entire sales team of updates to a product or service. Not only is that eating up time and money, it also means that for a certain length of time some people are selling the old version, blissfully unaware of the updates. Why not send update notifications direct to their mobile phone instead? That way, they know about the changes right away and can access the details again as and when they need to, at the touch of a button.

Likewise, if line managers are constantly flooded with emails or phone calls from new starters asking the same old question, why not find a way to let them ask and answer questions amongst themselves? Build a wiki, a forum, a portal or a fully fledged social network to facilitate this. With a bit of encouragement it will soon sustain itself, it can be used to start the settling in process before a new starter’s first day, it will complement any existing formal induction training and - crucially - it will save time and therefore money.

One thing that takes up a lot of time in every organisation is compliance training - if every employee needs to take several one hour courses every year or two, it soon adds up. But is it really necessary? How about offering staff the option to download a diagnostic assessment to a mobile device to determine whether or not they actually need to sit the full training course? If the assessment is designed properly, passing it provides confirmation of compliance in a fraction of the time it would normally take them to re-sit the same course they took the year before.

I could offer more examples, but the point is that there’s more than one way to skin a cat - if you need to improve productivity or performance and save time or money, a formal training course isn’t always the answer. These days, the possibilities are seemingly endless - with a little imagination applied to technological innovations, we can all achieve great things.

I’m currently reading a book by writer and consultant John Simmons, Dark Angels: How Writing Releases Creativity At Work, which has got me gripped. As an instructional designer at Saffron, my job involves writing - and lots of it. Every course I write is on a different topic and therefore demands a different style and tone, focused towards a particular audience. My aim is to always write the content, regardless of what it is, in a light, positive and conversational way so as to engage the learners and motivate them to want to take the training. But it can be tricky to strike a balance between making sure the right message is conveyed and trying to banish the business speak and avoid switching the learner off.

So I turned to John Simmons’ book in the hope it would not only help me become a better writer, more able to conquer various styles of writing, but also inspire me. Like John, I believe that creative writing in any business is relevant and essential for business and personal development, and I know that it’s only natural that my writing incorporates some of my own personality - as well as that of the company I’m writing the course for.

Something that John encourages really stuck a chord with me. One of his principles of writing is: ‘Transform the most unpromising materials. Not even lists can be boring.’ So I challenged myself to write a list which embodies my personality, and which conveys something about me to the reader. Here goes:

The contents of my handbag

Memories captured on paper, a flash of colour as I open my wallet,
photos reminding me of the places I have been.
A bundle of jingling keys, my trusty pen and notepad just in case a thought strikes.
Wild strawberry lip gloss to brighten up the day, Ibuprofen, mascara.
Excitement for the Friday night ahead as I find my camera. Mirror.
Pennies breeding in the bottomless pit, my eyes in liquid within a plastic case; my favourite scent in a bottle. A friend gave me the purse in which I find a camera battery and a business card. The iPod which keeps me sane on public transport. A Guatemalan worry doll, tucked away safely in the depths.

Hopefully that made you smile and warm to me as a writer because I expressed something individual, something that goes beyond providing straightforward information.

Can we do this at work? Of course we can. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you do - it’s hard to think of a job that doesn’t require the use of words. As John points out: ‘The reality is that if we write at work on behalf of a company, organisation or brand, we are being asked to carry out a creative writing exercise.’

As for e-learning, if even a list of what’s in your bag can be engaging, why can’t compliance training be engaging? Shouldn’t businesses embrace the opportunity to convey their personality through their induction training? What do you think?

I was interested to see that Skype has recently announced a partnership with LG and Panasonic, which means we will soon be able to buy a TV which we can use to Skype and browse the internet (find out more here). Promoting this new technology Skype’s business development manager, Jin Kim claimed that,

“TVs have lacked two things to date… eyes and ears” because “they haven’t had cameras and they haven’t had microphones.”

This led me to wonder… does e-learning also lack eyes and ears?

In fact, I think that many e-learning courses already possess ‘eyes and ears’ thanks to new technologies. Take mobile learning for example, where the learner progresses through the course and answers questions by speaking. Or how about social learning? Forums and help desks are evidence of an e-learning strategy’s ‘ears’ while the use of social networking points not only towards ‘eyes’ but also towards an age of collaborative learning that Skype and social networking sites’ popularity makes possible. And what about the advances being made in PC-based e-learning where we can now use techniques like 3D graphics, which allow the learner to pan around images and really become immersed in the learning? Surely highly interactive learning such as these examples could be counted as the ‘eyes and ears’ Kim is referring to?

This led me on to thinking that even if we do have ‘eyes and ears’ in our learning courses, does this actually enhance the learning in any way? For me, the following benefits come to mind:

• A positive first impression
• Learner engagement and motivation
• More realistic scenarios and environments where the learner can safely practise making decisions
• The ability to tailor the learning for different preferences, learning styles and capabilities

So far we’ve been focusing on how technology can give learning its ‘eyes and ears’ but I believe that this can also be created through instructional design. For instance, a scenario can be made more realistic by using well researched case studies written in a conversational tone. Or the learner can choose how they want to progress through a course by selecting to experience a certain scenario from a different point of view, for example, an interviewer versus an interviewee.

Kim’s thoughts about the evolution of TV are interesting, but I don’t think we can expect to see e-learning strategies reliant on cameras and microphones anytime soon. Instead, we should continue to vary the approaches we take and to be creative, rather than focusing only on the technology involved. After all, the most innovative graphics, interactions and technology will fail to engage the learner if the instructional design falls short.

(See Cat’s top L&D tip here.)

It doesn’t take a genius to make a presentation look great. All you need is a set of well designed master slides. Now read on for five top tips to help you get the most out of your master slides.

1. Use a single slide master for simple presentations
Formatting presentations in PowerPoint can be a painstaking process, especially if there are number of elements on each slide. But if all these elements are common to each slide, you can make sure that all the slides look the same by creating a single slide master.

2. Use multiple slide masters for complex presentations
If you’re working on a complex piece of work such as a storyboard, you might find it best to create multiple slide masters, each one representing a specific screen type. This saves time and effort and ensures that the screen types are consistent across your storyboards.

3. Reduce the file size of your presentations
Presentations can become quite large, especially if you are using a lot of images. Creating master slides not only saves time but also minimises the file size. For example, if you are using a 1MB image five times, instead of adding it to five slides just add it to one slide master and reuse it as often as you like.

4. Remember: not everything is ruled by master slides
Even if you are using master slides, you can still make changes to individual slides. And if you edit a slide master, you won’t lose those changes. However, if you delete a slide master, the formatting will change so make sure you either create a new slide master or apply another appropriate one that already exists.

5. Save master slides for later
PowerPoint often automatically deletes a slide master if it’s not being used in a presentation. So, if you’ve created a slide master which you’re not using in your current presentation, make sure you preserve it by right-clicking on the slide and selecting the Preserve Master option. That way you know you can use it another time.

Download our top ten tips forfor making effective use of master slides

I hate telling someone I studied languages at university and then having them say ‘ooh, say something in French’. There’s nothing worse than being put on the spot and there’s no surer way to scare all the fancy French words from my head and leave my mind blank. It’s the same with creativity. Inspiration strikes at the most random moments and more often than not eludes you when you most need it - like when you’re racking your brains for a new take on performance management training or trying to come up with a catchy course title. It’s not always easy to be creative on demand, day in, day out.

That’s not the only challenge though. We all want each new project to be an opportunity to do something fresh and innovative and we all try to ‘think outside the box’. But the fact is we often don’t have that freedom. We’re so often confronted with ‘we need it yesterday’ deadlines, ‘we can’t spend a penny more’ budgets and ‘our technology can’t do that’ restrictions. It can be easy to get stuck in a rut (or feel like you are) when faced with limitations like this and even easier to end up using them as excuses for simply churning out the tried and tested solutions time and time again.

But that’s the reality of what we do, our industry does require us to work within these considerations. What we need to do is see the constraints of budgets, timescales, resources and so on as an opportunity for even greater creativity. Sometimes, having a limited set of options or tools can actually result in a more creative output (one of my colleagues wrote a few months ago about how the reverse is true - too many options can be counterproductive to creativity) and working within a tight timeframe can also be a stimulus for creativity (how many students have written their best essays in the early hours of the morning of the deadline?).

We’ve recently introduced a new element to our team meetings, trying out some exercises to boost our creativity (you can find some starting points here) and we’d love to hear any other tips and ideas that we can try out. But I think a lot of it comes down to attitude. Rather than seeing deadlines and budgets as limitations on creativity, we need to rise to the challenge and find new ways to be creativity within those parameters. So rather than always trying to think outside the box, we need to start thinking creatively inside the box.

The recent turmoil in the financial markets and the resulting chaos in all of our businesses have both intensified our desire to be ‘rapid’. We want things faster and cheaper. We want minimal fuss and we just want to get on with it. We’re practical people, we get things done and we want to prove this to the world. Music to the ears of anyone selling a rapid development tool but what about instructional designers (IDs)? Where do they fit in? Pah, I hear you say. Who needs an ID? Our subject matter experts know all there is to know. If we give them a tool that allows them to put their knowledge online, surely this will be better and more authentic than having a third party develop the material? It will certainly be a lot cheaper and faster!

This is when I get worried. Not because I make my living from bespoke e-learning but because this kind of talk is dangerous. It subjects thousands of people to the tyranny of poorly designed training and holds them accountable for what they should have learnt. When we talk the ‘we don’t need instructional design’ nonsense, we forget that the true cost of training does not lie in the development. The true cost comes when we find out that the training hasn’t worked. For example, if you run a project management course, online or in the classroom, this may cost you a few thousand pounds. However, if the training is not effective and your people still can’t manage projects, the cost may run into the millions. Therefore, it’s critical that you ensure any learning intervention you invest in has the best chance of returning the benefits that your organisation is demanding. Otherwise, why bother at all? This is where instructional design comes in.

You’ll be glad to know that I’m not the only person that holds this view. At a recent presentation, Dr Itiel Dror demonstrated that we can all give knowledge but does this mean that our learners receive it as intended and can apply it? The answer is probably no. He explained that our brain works in a particular way and that when we want to build effective training material, we need to take this into account. For instance, all one hundred of us in the audience were unable to count the number of Fs on a screen, even though they were in front of our eyes in black and white, and we missed a gorilla doing a jig in the middle of a video. It’s all to do with the way the brain works, he explained. Instructional designers know this and build this into their content design.

I’m a big fan of rapid development and think we should do more of it. But, please, don’t sacrifice good learning design in order to meet your desire to be rapid. Appreciate that content development, to be effective, will take some time but this time will be well spent when you measure the benefits.

For a flavour of Dr Dror’s work, go to http://www.csedu.org/Documents/keynotes/dror.pdf and click here to see or miss the gorilla.

Early last week I suddenly began to feel feverish and aching and suspected I might have been struck down by the dreaded disease of the moment, swine flu. After leaving work early and trying to sleep it off at home I decided that it was pointless waiting for the symptoms to get worse, instead I should call the wonderful government hotline and get an official diagnosis. With my housemates lurking at a safe distance in the next room and my head pounding like a policeman at the door, I dialled the number. After a short wait a young man with a thick Scottish accent answered in a dead-pan voice not dissimilar to that of the man who reads out the shipping reports. I soon realised why - he had the longest list of questions for me and was clearly sick of asking them.

“Are you calling on behalf of the patient or are you the patient yourself?”
After telling him I was the patient he then said,

“Is the patient currently having breathing difficulties?”
I informed him that no, I, the patient, was not having any breathing difficulties. He then said,

“Is the patient conscious and able to talk coherently?”
Now if I’d been my normal belligerent self I would have retorted by asking him whether he thought I, the patient, was currently talking to him coherently. But with a temperature of 38.5ºC I really didn’t have the energy for such rhetoric. His next question nearly changed my mind though,

“Is the patient currently having a fit or a seizure?”
Well I didn’t know about a medical fit but I, the patient, could certainly feel a big fit of rage coming on.

My point? Well, it’s not just the types of questions you ask that’s important, it’s the way you phrase them too. I know the man on the phone had to follow a list of questions, but surely he could have made the effort to stop referring to me in the third person? And, instead of asking if I was having a seizure, why didn’t he re-phrase the question to make it more of a friendly confirmation that I wasn’t having a seizure?

I made a mental note to remember these thoughts for when I got back to the office, as writing successful questions for a course is one of the biggest challenges of our job as instructional designers. Often we get fixated on whether the answers are plausible, or whether the questions are relevant and continue to engage the learner. We often forget that the actual way the question is phrased or the language we use could also have a big impact on the learner’s engagement in the course. So, the next time I’m writing questions I’ll remember my Scottish swine flu interrogator and ensure that the phrasing and language I use don’t get in the way of a good question.

Taking a step closer to British citizenship is an important event in my life. The process of applying for indefinite leave to remain involves taking the Life in the UK test which, if I pass, will supposedly show that I have the necessary grasp of the English language and understanding of UK life that one requires for citizenship.

Like anyone eager to pass, I bought the Handbook and Q&A pack for a value price of £12.99 and wrote up a timetable to study for 30 minutes every night after work. As I worked my way through the guide, I remember thinking to myself ‘this is pretty interesting stuff but there are an awful lot of statistics and dates - I hope I don’t have to remember these!’

The guide was the easy part; then came the practice tests - 24 questions per test and 45 minutes in which to finish, and most of the questions were, as I’d feared, a regurgitation of statistics and dates with a couple of practical questions thrown in to mix it up a bit! Even a pub quiz has more engaging questions.

As an instructional designer, I like to think I have a fair idea of what constitutes a good question - one that tests practical knowledge rather than memory and one that’s challenging to the learner but fair. Below are some samples of what I faced:

• Where does Santa Claus come from?

An easy enough question, but as foreigner I might not even know who Santa Claus is. One might argue that it’s part of British culture to know about Santa Claus but surely knowing where this fictitious character comes from does not indicate my knowledge and understanding of life in the UK?!

So, how about some statistics or random facts?

• What percentage of the UK population stated that they were Christian?
• What percentage of the UK population is Jewish?
• What percentage of the UK’s population is white?
• How many members does The National Assembly for Wales have?
• What is the distance (in miles) between the North coast of Scotland and the South coast of England?
• How much is the deposit required for candidates standing as a Member of the European Parliament?

Clearly after becoming a British citizen, the next step is to become an MEP!

And then there were a couple of trick questions:

• How much do you have to pay to visit the Parliament? - You don’t have to pay!
• Who wrote the United Kingdom’s constitution? - No one, it’s an unwritten constitution!

And then a few questions to ‘help one integrate into society’:

• Why were specialist immigration centres set up in the West Indies in the 1950s? 
• Where did the tradition of playing jokes on one another on April 1st originate?

However, not all the questions were like this:

• What happens if a driver has more than the permitted amount of alcohol in his/her body or refuses to take the test?
• What is the minimum age to drive a car or motorcycle?
• What is a CRB check?
• True or false? It is illegal to drive a vehicle while using a mobile phone.
• What is the highest denomination bank note in the England?
• What is the speed limit for a motorway or dual carriageway?
• True or false? NHS Walk-in centres provide treatment for minor injuries and illnesses seven days a week.

I was relieved to finally be presented with some relevant questions based on useful topics and facts that are useful and which any newcomer can apply to life in the UK.

The overall objective of the test was to assess my knowledge and understanding of UK life but I feel that it did neither. Although a few of the questions forced me to learn about some of the basic laws and rules that all residents of the UK must abide by, many of the questions revolved around random topics or concepts that no one needs to know about in day to day life, or facts and statistics that aren’t going to increase my ability to live in this country.

It’s been interesting studying for the Life in the UK exam whilst bearing in mind Saffron’s instructional design approach to writing knowledge test questions. It’s a shame that the exam doesn’t focus on people’s behaviours, or on choices and decisions that I’ll face in life. Wish me luck!

Whether they’re for an assessment or part of the training course itself, writing questions can be a tricky business. Read on for Saffron’s top ten tips for creating effective questions that test learners in the right way, on the right thing.

1. Draft the assessment before the content
If step one is defining the objectives and learning outcomes, step two is drafting the assessment. Make sure each question maps back to the outcomes and then focus the training content on the assessment.

2. Randomise the assessment
Ideally an end of course assessment will have a pool of questions, with a random selection drawn on each attempt. This means, if learners fail once, they can’t simply memorise where they went wrong but are actually tested again.

3. Remember: quality not quantity
When it comes to assessments, it’s better to have 10 excellent questions than 40 substandard ones. Likewise, multiple choice questions generally work best with four options - don’t go below three or above five without a very good reason.

4. Use questions to drive the learning
We’re big believers in the value of the test and tell approach. Don’t just give learners information and then test them on it. Instead, ask them to think for themselves with a question before correcting or confirming their answers.

5. Focus on behaviours
We’re in the business of changing behaviours. This means we need to enable learners to do the right thing, not just to remember facts and figures. Make sure every question relates to a choice or decision learners will face in real life.

6. Make it challenging…
If the right answer is three times as long as the rest, or the wrong answers are likely to make learners laugh not think, there’s no point even asking the question. Yes, coming up with plausible wrong answers is hard, but it’s worth the effort.

7. …but keep it fair
Don’t try to trick learners or give them an impossible choice. Negative questions, options that are identical except for one word, and questions on topics that weren’t actually covered in the course are neither fair nor effective.

8. Avoid yes/no questions
Giving learners a 50% chance of guessing correctly is not the most effective test. If you must use them, include a couple more options and make sure that ‘yes’, ‘no’ and ‘maybe’ are qualified, so learners have to justify their choice.

9. Help people learn from their mistakes
Don’t just use ticks and crosses to show how learners have done. Provide constructive feedback to reinforce the message if they answer correctly, and explain where they went wrong if they answer incorrectly.

10. Keep the learners’ experience in mind
Focusing on behaviours is one way to answer the ‘what’s in it for me?’ question. But there are other ways - for instance, pre-tests assess existing knowledge and point towards the most relevant training units. Time efficient and effective!

Download our top ten tips for for writing effective questions

We all want our e-learning to be a positive experience for the learner and deliver results for the business. Here are Saffron’s top ten tips for delivering engaging, effective, excellent instructional design every time.

1. Set testable, behavioural learning outcomes
Before you start designing the course, make sure you understand what you want the learners to be able to do by the end of the course. Do you really want them just to understand something, or do you want them to take action?

2. Put yourself in the learners’ shoes
At the start of the project, ask yourself what the learners already know about the subject and what questions they are likely to have. Then make sure you answer those questions in the training.

3. Emulate the best in classroom training
Great classroom training is often down to two key things - shared experiences and human interaction. Apply these lessons to your e-learning: use case studies or testimonials from real life, and build up a dialogue with your learner.

4. Remember: content is king
All good training is interactive - most people will switch off if they’re just reading, or listening, not actually doing anything. But make sure the interactions are driven by the content, not the other way around.

5. Use technology to enhance (not define) your solution
Likewise, there are near endless possibilities offered by technology these days and they really can turn something good into something great, but don’t let them define your solution - the strategy, not the technology, should drive the design.

6. Include scenarios to demonstrate relevance
The best way to change behaviours is to use scenarios that put the learners in a realistic situation. Ask them to make a decision, identify a problem or suggest a solution - this way, you’re equipping them to do the right thing in real life.

7. Test and tell, don’t tell and test
The model of telling someone something and testing them on it shortly afterwards tests memory, not understanding. It’s more effective to ask learners to think for themselves and draw on their own experiences to reach the right answer.

8. Make it easy for learners
No matter how engaging the content or innovative the design, if the course can’t be navigated easily or if it’s not accessible, you’ll give your learners a negative experience.

9. Speak the learners’ language
You’re designing a training course, not an instructional manual. Strike a conversational tone and speak in plain English - you’re much more likely to engage your learners than if you take a formal tone or use lots of legal or business jargon.

10. Get a second opinion
It’s hard to be objective when you’re the one who’s written the content. Before declaring your storyboards finished, ask a colleague or friend to take a look. Their first impression will give you a good idea of how learners will react later.

 Download our top ten tips for excellent instructional design

I’m currently writing a course for a retail client about climate change and this has really made me think about the ‘What’s in it for me?’ question. We always talk about engaging the learner and getting their buy-in, but what do we actually mean? For this course in particular I realised the importance of this because we’ve heard it all before about environmental issues. ‘Because of climate change the polar bears won’t have a home, so remember to turn off your computer every night.’ But do people really care about these things? Well, I’m sure there are some people who genuinely care about the plight of the polar bear but in reality most of us are more concerned with what we’re having for dinner.

It’s nothing new that teachers and instructors need to be salespeople in order to sell the benefits of the learning and engage their audience. This started me thinking that as well as writing learning outcomes at the start of designing a training course, maybe we should also write ‘audience drivers’. That is, answer the question that the learners will be asking themselves when their manager tells them to take the course: ‘OK, but what’s in it for me?’ We need to find out what really makes our audience tick, what is it that’s going to make them take 30 minutes out of their day to complete this course? But not just complete it, not just click Next and fluke the test at the end, actually, dare I say it, enjoy and appreciate it?

The course I’m currently designing is aimed at store managers within a retail company and so at the kick-off meeting for the project I asked:

• 1. What motivates store managers in their everyday job?
• 2. What don’t store managers like?
• 3. What three things come into your head when describing store managers?

It didn’t take them long to come up with the answers below:

• 1. Costs and making more profit, therefore bigger bonuses
• 2. Wasting time, long sentences, vague opinions
• 3. Task-oriented, matter-of-fact, competitive

Well, no surprises there then. So, how do we bring that into the course? We can’t just say ‘by taking this course you will be able to save money by reducing your energy usage’. Yes, this type of signposting can be useful but it’s not that engaging. If their number one priority is to make more profit, I decided to brainstorm a list of things that might help them do that:

• Refurbishing their store to attract more customers and increase sales
• Hiring more sales staff to increase sales
• Increasing their marketing activities to increase sales
• Being at the top of their monthly store managers’ sales league table (and getting a bigger bonus)

Now, instead of statements such as ‘turning off the lights saves you money’, we can tell them that ‘turning off the lights saves you money which you can use to hire more staff to increase sales and therefore profits.’ But, in order to really engage these people, it’s essential to consider the way we convey the message to them too and that last sentence was rather long-winded. Taking on board answers two and three from my original questions I began to focus more on using bullet points, short sentences and matter-of-fact statements about the ‘what’, ‘how’ and ‘why’.

And the result? A much punchier and more motivating e-learning module that speaks to the learners using language they connect to naturally, about a topic they are truly invested in.

A couple of days ago I read with interest Clive Shepherd’s latest blog post in which he refers to his recent experience on the other side of the fence, as a student rather than designer of compliance e-learning. He draws the conclusion that it’s hard - if not impossible - to create something that achieves both competence and compliance. This is a topic we’ve broached before on the Spicy Learning Blog and I admit my thoughts on this are perhaps half-formed (or, more accurately, ever evolving), but I’m not entirely sure I agree with Clive…

What’s interesting is that he goes so far as to say the material was not just interesting, but fascinating. This is not always the case with compliance training, and creating something which actually piques the learner’s interest and gets them engaged is a great first step towards really effective e-learning. The next step is to create something that doesn’t simply achieve compliance, but delivers improved performance and behavioural change.

I would argue that this is absolutely possible in compliance training. Let’s take data protection as an example: a ‘traditional’ approach might simply run through the eight principles of data protection, instructing the learner in what they must and must not do when handling personal data. There would probably also be some horror stories about the dire consequences of breaking the law (as Donald Clark says, ‘the driver is NOT learning or people development, it’s “fear”‘), and a knowledge test or assessment consisting of questions focused on the wording and definitions of each of the principles. This type of course is designed purely for compliance purpose: the organisation can prove they’ve trained their people as required and cover their back in case an individual does break the law having taken the course.

But this is by no means the only way to approach the design of compliance e-learning. A more effective data protection training course, which aims to achieve the competence or enhanced awareness that Clive found lacking at the end of his experience as well as meet regulatory requirements, would focus not on the legislative detail but on what the law means in practice to each individual learner in their day to day work. We recently produced a course that took this approach and certainly took big steps towards achieving those aims.

We did broadly structure the course around the eight data protection principles, but we didn’t begin each section with the legal jargon and then hammer the point home with threats of dismissal, fines or prosecution. Instead we used video to engage the learner and demonstrate relevance by using very recognisable everyday situations and asking the learner to identify what the issues might be. We also offered them a variety of resources including real life case studies presented as news reports and newspaper articles, a take away list of suggested dos and don’ts that they could refer to in future (rather than ‘must’ and ‘must not’ messages on every other screen) and a data protection dictionary to translate any necessary jargon into easily understandable terms. We also paid close attention to the end of course assessment to ensure that this approach was applied there as well - all the questions presented the learner with situations that they might reasonably encounter at work and asked them to identify whether there was something to be concerned about, why this was the case, what should have been done differently or what action they would recommend.

The result was a course that absolutely met the organisation’s compliance obligations, but which also engaged learners and gave them an increased level of awareness and competence. Having taken the course they may not all be able to recite the actual wording of each principle, but they have the appropriate knowledge to be able to identify risky situations or areas of concern and to take steps to avoid or remedy those situations. They also have a genuine awareness of the seriousness of the topic, having been introduced to relevant real life examples and case studies throughout the course.

Of course, there would be people who took the course and claimed the aims hadn’t been met. But the overwhelming feedback from users and experts alike is that we delivered something they didn’t expect from compliance training. My favourite comment was from the technical expert testing for accessibility purposes who reported that he actually found himself reading the content voluntarily and being interested and engaged - not often the case with mandatory compliance training!

I’m guessing there are some strong views on this out there and I’d love to hear them. What do you think? Do you agree with Clive that competence and compliance are more or less mutually exclusive, or do you think there are ways they can sit comfortably together in e-learning? Leave your comments below and hopefully we’ll get a snapshot of what the learning and development community really thinks about compliance training!

I was standing next to a young lady on the tube this morning who was studiously working through a series of questions from a training handbook. She didn’t appear to be experiencing any difficulty with answering the questions; however, I did notice that the first question on the page had remained unanswered. To my surprise she tried to gain my attention by pointing animatedly with her pen. Upon closer observation I saw that she was pointing to the first question on the page and specifically at one word in particular.

Not really understanding the dilemma she was obviously in I asked her if she understood the question. Clearly she did not, but then I realised she didn’t understand me either. It was fairly obvious to me that she could write English judging by the extent of notes she had already written on the page, however we were not making much headway in how we were communicating with each other. She kept pointing to the phrase that was clearly vexing her: ‘on occasion.’ I wasn’t sure what she wanted of me so I responded by providing her with an alternative word that seemed to work with the question she was trying to answer - ‘sometimes’ - and to my great surprise she immediately and without any hesitation whatsoever began writing down her answer to the question.

Turning over the page, she continued to answer the next few questions, again without any difficulty until she reached the next stumbling block and just as before, tried to draw my attention by pointing to a specific word within a question. This time I didn’t hesitate: I read the question, saw the word she was struggling with, which was ‘promptly,’ and now starting to enjoy this early morning challenge responded with the word ‘quickly.’ Just as before, she immediately started to write down her answer to the question.

The tube at this point stopped at Chancery Lane, my designated stop, and with some degree of reluctance I wished the young lady good luck in her training and left her on the tube.

What did I learn from this experience? Two key things:

• We can all learn anywhere and at any time. This student was diligently working through some form of training material on her way perhaps to college or work.
• When designing learning or training material it really is fundamentally and critically important that the language we use can be understood by the end users, and this means all end users, whether English is their first language or not.

Why is it that this eastern European did not understand the words ‘occasion’ or ‘promptly’ but did understand ‘sometimes’ and ‘quickly’? I will never find out the answer to this question but it has left me richer from the experience.

My colleague (and fellow contributor to the Spicy Learning Blog) Lucy and I presented at last month’s eLearning Network event on creating effective and engaging learning content. This is a dauntingly vast topic and our biggest challenge was probably stripping down everything we wanted to say to some key messages that might actually prove useful to other delegates (or, at the very least, provide some food for thought). In the end, those key messages were:

• The importance of getting it right first time and how this can be achieved.
• What good learning content really looks like.
• How to move from good learning content to great learning content.

Lucy began by talking about how best learning providers can meet the expectations of their clients. She identified three main points here.

• Taking a consultative approach: The very best client-supplier relationship are actually strategic partnerships, in which the provider doesn’t simply deliver one-off products but works with the client to identify their business needs and develop a long term strategy, and supports the client in measuring results and evaluating progress.
• Developing long lasting relationships: This depends on the provider really making an effort to understand the client’s culture - what kind of people work there, what do the respond well to, what are the organisational constraints, what kind of appetite is there for different training methods? 
• Delivering fit for purpose solutions: Of course, no partnership will survive, let alone thrive, unless the provider consistently delivers on time, on spec and on budget.

All these become more challenging when the client or audience is new to e-learning. In these cases we often have to overcome an initial resistance to or scepticism about e-learning. This can’t be done unless we really do engage with the organisation and its people, identifying the barriers and working to overcome them. More than this, though, we need to let our passion and enthusiasm for what we do speak for itself, and turn any scepticism there may be into support. It all comes back to creativity, collaboration and communication.

So having discussed why it’s so important to deliver good learning content time after time, we turned our attention to what that really means. Everyone’s got their own ideas about what ‘good’ looks like, but some words crop up time and time again - engaging, relevant and effective are three of them - so we spent a few minutes thinking about how these things can be achieved.

• Engaging: You could argue that e-learning is limited in its ability to engage, what with it being more often than not a relatively solitary activity when compared with classroom workshops. But there are elements of classroom training that can work just as well online. Elements like collaboration and discussion (using video or graphics to communicate case studies or real life events), the opportunity to practise in a safe environment at your own pace, and the conversational tone and ‘people’ aspect. 
• Relevant: e-Learning might on the whole reduce the amount of time required for training, but it doesn’t mean people don’t want it reduced even further. People don’t appreciate spending an hour completing an online training course if they can’t easily and immediately see how it’s relevant to what they do every day at work. One of the best ways to ensure and demonstrate relevance is to use scenarios based on the kinds of situation they’ll face every day, to ask them to make the kinds of choices they’ll be confronted with at work, and - crucially - to include clear and full discussion of what’s in it for them - what are the consequences of doing the wrong thing and what are the benefits of doing the right thing?
• Effective: No matter how engaging and relevant, learning content can’t be considered ‘good’ if it doesn’t deliver the improved performance and business results it promised. One way to ensure effectiveness is to make sure questions and activities are used to maximum effect: you need to challenge your learner, not trick them. And they’re more likely to remember what they learn if they are actively involved in working things out rather than simply passively receiving information (we’re firm believers in the value of test and tell, as opposed to the all too common tell and test approach).

But why stop there? Is ‘good’ always good enough? Often it’s the little things that make the difference between something good and something great. Things like taking advantage of your position as an instructional designer - you’re not a subject matter expert when you begin (though you will be by the end of the project) so you can identify with the end users. What questions do you have? They’re probably the questions the learners will have to, so they’re the questions you need to make sure you answer.

The way you use technology can be another big factor in whether you deliver something that’s just good enough or something with the wow factor. There’s just no point showing off your team’s combined technical expertise if the end result doesn’t align with the strategy. Too many fancy graphics and animations, or excessive use of video or sound effects, can actually work against you, diluting your key message and distracting from what’s important: sometimes less can be more.

Finally, don’t pigeon hole yourself! Our industry isn’t just technology focused, it’s also people focused. Just because your job title is ‘graphic designer’ doesn’t mean you can’t contribute valuably to discussions about learning strategy; Flash developers often have a budding writer inside them; and why shouldn’t instructional designers also be able to edit video? Don’t stick within your comfort zone - push yourself to learn new things, blur the boundaries between roles and teams and constantly keep yourself on your toes. Refusing to just stick to what you know and keep going as you’ve always gone before is one great way to make sure that what you produce is always moving forwards too.

Our presentation slides can be accessed here and the full event report can be found here.

Exam season is upon us again. My youngest sister is embarking on her second year university exams, my primary school age brother is enjoying his half term holiday having just taken the annual series of practice SATs, and my other sister is soon to become a teacher and is therefore set to be facing ‘exam term’ every year for the foreseeable future. My own exam days are over, but I am working towards a masters which is entirely coursework assessed and therefore much more up my street.

All this has got me thinking - what can we learn from the world of academic learning and assessment, and what issues cross from that world into ours, the world of online learning?

Over the next few weeks, thousands of students of all ages will be preparing for and taking exams. Some of those students will have worked with those exams, and the coursework throughout the year, in mind since September. Some will have devised and hopefully stuck to structured revision plans since Easter. Some will wait for study leave to begin their revision in earnest. And some will be enjoying the sunshine while it’s here and cramming 24 hours before each exam.

Each of those methods has its pros and cons and none guarantees success above the others - despite what teachers would have their students believe, some people do perfectly well on the basis of a last minute cram (although I’m not sure that it necessarily yields results in terms of lasting knowledge or comprehensive understanding). But without going into these arguments in detail, what’s important is that people do learn, work and prepare in different ways.

We all have our own learning preferences, and - certainly by the time we reach the workplace, if not at school - we know what works best for us. Our job as learning designers is to cater to those learning styles as far as possible. This means being prepared to move away from the ‘traditional’ model of linear training courses that are taken in one sitting. It means building on the idea of blended learning so that we don’t simply offer a prescribed mix of delivery methods but also offer learners a degree of choice over the way they learn. It means looking at the way in which people relate to technology and information and creating training that replicates those relationships.

For instance, one of the most striking effects of the internet is that we now expect to be able to find exactly what we need or want precisely when we need or want it. Not only that, but we don’t want to have to trawl through pages of related but less critically relevant information to find the bit that matters - we want bite sized chunks of information at our finger tips. We’ve also become adept at combining information from different sources and seeking out the most appropriate source on each occasion - we may still read a daily newspaper for lengthy analyses and expert opinion on key issues, but we might turn to the internet for updates on breaking news stories or those strange little stories that don’t tend to appear in The Times. Likewise, there are times when we don’t have access to the internet or time to browse a newspaper, and it’s at times like these that we might turn to our iPhones for real time travel information or cinema showing times.

You could argue that technology has made us selfish in this way - we expect to be able to find anything, any time, via the route that’s most convenient for us. But whether this is a good or bad thing, we need to accept that workflow learning is what many people want in this day and age, and cater to this in the provision of learning and training. Increasingly we’re looking at creating banks or packages of resources on a particular subject. This is likely to include some element of formal e-learning as we know it, although probably in smaller chunks that can be accessed individually as well as part of a longer online session. But it’s also likely to include additional elements such as file sharing sites where videos can be stored and informal discussion between learners can be facilitated and monitored. Perhaps, for subjects such as compliance training, those yearly retakes of the same course can be replaced by more targeted update training, including a diagnostic assessment to identify which areas of knowledge need to be refreshed. For those people who prefer not to sit at their computer to learn, we might offer more audio based training chunks - podcasts or i-Cast™ segments - or video based sessions that can be accessed via mobile devices.

The possibilities, though perhaps not endless, are rapidly increasing as technology becomes ever more advanced - and it’s our job to keep up with those advances. When designing a training solution it’s always useful to take a step back before automatically doing what you always do. We’ve all been students at one time or another - whether that’s at school, university or in a professional context - so we’ve all got valuable experience to draw on in terms of teaching methods and learning styles. That’s not to say you should design a course tailored to your own preferences, but that you should be aware of the range of learning preferences, teaching methods and technological possibilities out there and create something that, as far as possible, offers the learner some degree of choice in the way they learn.

When you’re creating an e-learning course, where do you start? You might begin by creating the overall theme or concept. The ‘look and feel’ and design mock ups are probably developed fairly early on. You write your storyboard content and this leads on to decisions about functionality and technology. Soon after this you might select your voiceover artists or video actors.

But what about the assessment or knowledge test? This might come after everything else in the course but this is no reason for it to come after everything else in the development process.

The knowledge test is usually a fairly critical element of an e-learning course. It gives the organisation information about how effective the learning is. Of course, it only does that if the test itself is effective. And the test is only effective if the instructional designer has devoted time to creating questions that genuinely do test the learner and tie in to the learning objectives.

In fact, it’s not just the questions in the end of unit test that need this level of attention. Anyone who’s reasonably familiar with Saffron probably knows that we’re fans of what we call the ‘test and tell’ theory. It’s a pretty simple technique based on pretty simple observations about how people learn - in a nutshell, information is much more likely to ‘stick’ if you’ve had to think about it and work it out yourself than if you’ve just been told it. So rather than just telling learners something and then a few minutes later asking them a question on it, we turn it around - we ask them what they think first.

So - regardless of where the question appears in the course - how do you make it a good one? Take a look at Cathy Moore’s blog for a brilliant illustration of how not to write questions, and keep in mind these top tips:

• Focus on behaviour - The very best e-learning changes behaviour; enabling your people to actually do the right thing is far more important than enabling them to simply repeat facts and figures they’ve recently read. Make sure each one of your questions relates to one of your behavioural learning outcomes and to what the learners do every day.
• Challenge the learner - Run your question past someone who isn’t at all familiar with the subject matter; if they get the answer right, your question probably isn’t hard enough. Most likely, the right answer is three times as long as the wrong answers or the wrong answers are more likely to make the learner laugh than think (I know, I know - coming up with plausible wrong answers is harder than it sounds, but it’s worth the effort).
• Don’t trick the learner - Now run the question past someone who knows the material inside out; if they get the answer wrong, your question is probably too hard. Negative questions or options that are identical except for one word are not the fairest or most effective way to test your learners. Nor is asking a question on something that wasn’t actually covered in the course.
• Avoid ‘yes/no’ questions - Giving the learner a 50% chance of simply guessing the right answer isn’t really great question writing. If you do need to include a yes/no type of question, make it a bit more challenging by adding a couple more options and qualifying the answers (”Yes, because….”). That way, even if the learner guesses the answer is ‘yes’, they still have to know why and choose between the two ‘yes’ options.
• Avoid ‘all of the above’ answers - Again, if the learner sees this as an option, they’d usually assume this is the correct answer - and they’d usually be right. Coming up with wrong answers might be more challenging for you, but ultimately it’s more challenging for the learner - and therefore a more effective question.

Next month I, along with one of my colleagues, will be speaking at the eLearning Network event ‘Creating engaging and effective learning content.’ A big topic indeed, so it was hard to know where to start.

Surely it goes without saying that e-learning should be engaging and effective? The thing is, maybe it goes without saying so much so that it also goes without thinking. How often do you actually ask yourself what ‘engaging’ means, what ‘effective’ means? And even if you do, there are answers to these questions that are just as ready made - ‘multimedia’ and ‘interactive’, for instance. We all know e-learning should be interactive, don’t we? But why? Is a course necessarily engaging just because it’s interactive? Does the level of interactivity needed to achieve engagement change as technology evolves and possibilities multiply? If it’s interactive and engaging, does that automatically mean it’s also effective?

So over the past week or so I’ve been thinking about what these words - ‘engaging’ and ‘effective’ - really mean and how they can be achieved and realised in our online training courses. Of course there are no concrete answers but, in the words of Lloyd Alexander, ‘we learn more by looking for the answer to a question and not finding it than we do from learning the answer itself’. If you’re coming along to the event, you’ll be able to hear what I’ve learnt from asking myself these questions!

As someone who composes music in their spare time I often come up against a wall of creative choice when starting a new composition. I could write a piece of music for any instrument, at any speed or any style, based in a major or minor key or even in multiple keys, and I find myself overwhelmed by the endless possibilities. This often results in me getting 24 bars into a new composition for full symphony orchestra plus rock band and wondering whether I could add in an opera singer, two Indian sitars and a tabla. It’s then that I realise I have got side-tracked by the abundant possibilities and my composition has lost all direction, focus and meaning.

So what does this have to do with e-learning? Well, just like music composition, the possibilities are endless. We have so much technology at our disposal, endless video and graphic options and wonderfully eye-catching gadgets we could use that we can be left feeling overwhelmed with choice. Should this slide be a click-to-reveal or a drag-and-drop? Should we introduce another character with a new case study? Perhaps the case study could be an interactive video? Could we have the character be made to look like the learner using their internal work photograph? As we begin to drown in exciting possibilities, so too does the learner. Inevitably their senses are overwhelmed by a million and one super gadgets and gimmicks but are they actually learning? Since the main point of any training is to learn, a way of curbing and channelling this creativity has to be found.

When I began my music degree we were all instructed to compose a piece of music using only one note. Initially I was filled with dread, how could I possibly compose something using only one note? Then the penny dropped and I realised there was so much more to music than simply the pitch of the notes, for example, I could use any instruments I wanted, I could change the rhythms and dynamics (loud and soft) or the tempo. Suddenly it struck me that previously I had been using pitch and melody as a crutch to hold up my compositions. The idea of limiting a composition or part of a composition to only one note is not a new idea. In North Indian classical music, a raga (piece of music) starts off with the sitar playing only one note repeatedly for several minutes. They will strum the note quickly or slowly, the octave above and then the two octaves together,and then back to the single note. And then, one time they will play an entirely different note and that new note sounds like the most wondrous note you’ve ever heard. It has much more impact than if you had been hearing that note throughout the piece of music. It really makes you sit up and listen.

Therefore, as an instructional designer perhaps I should set limits on my creativity. Of course, this doesn’t mean I will end up creating a bland and non-interactive course, it just means that effects should not be the crutch of an e-learning course rather they should be facilitators to the learning process. Perhaps the first module of the training should have no interaction at all? Perhaps each module should be limited to a maximum of 3 interactive pages? Perhaps the layout of every page should be standard until there’s a really critical point the learner must absorb and then that page should be in a different style to give more emphasis to this point? Just as there is so much more to a piece of music than melody, there is also so much more to an e-learning course than gadgets. There are so many subtle ways in which to interact with the learner and cause them to learn in a more focussed and strategic way. By limiting choices in some creative areas, other areas will inevitably blossom. By picking and choosing when to allow this blossoming and using it as a way to emphasise the key learning topics, the resulting course should be more succesful and focussed.

Far be it from me to question one of the greatest writers our country has produced, but I’m not entirely sure I agree with Shakespeare’s declaration (via Juliet) that “that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

Yes, admittedly a course on the finer points of health and safety is likely to be limited in its entertainment value whatever name you give it. And yes, just because you conjure up a (perhaps misleadingly) exciting course title doesn’t mean that you’ll convince your learners that they want, rather than need, to get to grips with the ins and outs of information retention.

But, as we all know, first impressions count. This applies to people (it takes the average person only a matter of seconds to make a whole series of judgements on meeting someone new) and to technology (it can take less than a second for an internet browser to make up their mind about the quality of a website). It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out that it also applies to training courses.

It’s important, then, to take a bit of time to think about the title you give to your training course. Whether it’s an online course or a classroom session, put yourself in the shoes of the learner signing up or logging into the LMS. If they see a course titled “Risk Assessment”, what are they likely to think? In all probability, they’ll reluctantly sign up for or access the training, expecting yet another dreary, slightly patronising, not-at-all-relevant-to-my-every-day-work glorified PowerPoint presentation. And even if what they get is far better than that, the chances are it’s that impression that will stick with them.

On the other hand, imagine they see an induction course called “Welcome to our world” rather than “Company induction” or a compliance course called “Fighting fraud” instead of “Anti money laundering”, their interest may be piqued just enough for them to (however momentarily) want to find out more.

Of course, it’s important to strike the right balance between the slightly unexpected and the just plain obscure – you’re not writing cryptic crossword clues, after all, and it needs to be clear what the course is about. But equally, a chain is no stronger than its weakest link – neglect the course title and you’re putting yourself at a disadvantage, having to prove yourself to the learner before they’ve even given your course a chance. A little extra thought when naming your course means that you might avoid the words “dreary” and “irrelevant” ever entering their heads. And later, when they look back on the course, with any luck they’ll remember it as the one that was a pleasant surprise.