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.

There’s a huge array of authoring tools out there and, when it comes to finding the right one for you, it can be hard to know where to start. If you choose the wrong one, it won’t live up to the promise of delivering rapid e-learning – so here are our five top tips for sourcing the right tool for your needs.

1. Consider the output first
Ask yourself what type of online training components you need to deliver: for instance, will it predominately consist of text or will it be complex, adaptive e-learning; does it require captures, simulations or assessments? Note down the ideal features you need from your authoring tool as this will come in handy when you start your research.

2. Decide between ease of use and creative flexibility
You’ve got two broad options: a highly formatted tool that offers limited flexibility but requires little or no training time at all for the author, or a tool that offers more creative latitude but requires more time investment for learning how to use the various features and functionalities.

3. Do your research
Before making any decisions, research the vast range of authoring tools on the market. Consider the key features and limitations against your requirements and constraints. Viewing any online demonstrations that are available is a great way to get a feel for what can be achieved with the various tools.

4. Select complementary combinations
One tool won’t necessarily provide a best fit solution for the needs of all your training components. So once you’ve done your research on the features and limitations of the various tools, think about selecting a combination of tools that perform complementary functions. This way you’ll equip yourself with a suite of tools tailored to your requirements.

5. Don’t forget about accessibility
Most of the tools available on the market use Flash, and often don’t conform to W3C accessibility standards. Make sure that you know right from the outset whether accessibility is one of your requirements. If it is, you need to consider how far the various tools meet this requirement and how you might overcome their limitations in this area.

Download our top five tips for choosing the right authoring tools

“It is impossible to travel faster than the speed of light, and certainly not desirable, as one’s hat keeps blowing off.” Woody Allen

The buzz word in Learning and Development during 2008 has undoubtedly been Rapid Development. Numerous tools have established themselves in the market and various consultancies now specialise in building e-learning at the speed of light. I’m a big believer in empowering users and prefer to do things myself when I can. I also believe that many of our clients have benefited from having content development tools in house.

The question I ask, however, is ‘can this approach deliver the same benefit faster or cheaper than commissioning a bespoke development’? The reality is that the software development part of any e-learning project takes a lot less time than designing the product and writing the content. As many of you know, developing content for e-learning presents a number of challenges, including getting sign off from the Subject Matter Expert. None of this can be turbo charged using content development tools.

So my advice, if you are embarking on this road, is caveat emptor - be very clear about what parts of the process you are trying to speed up and the reality of what is involved. If your SME takes ten days to review content, Articulate won’t help. Without this thinking, your authoring tool will be just another piece of software that promised so much and delivered so little.