Category “Instructional Design”

Demystifying the ADDIE Process: A Beginner’s Guide

Instructional Design
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2024-05-17

Welcome to the world of instructional design!

If you’re new to instructional design, you might have heard of the ADDIE model but aren’t quite sure what it entails. Fear not! This blog post will break down the ADDIE process into bite-sized pieces, making it easy for anyone to understand.

What is ADDIE?

ADDIE stands for Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation. It’s a framework that many instructional designers and training developers use to create effective learning materials.

Why use ADDIE?

The beauty of ADDIE lies in its flexibility and systematic approach. It guides us through creating educational programs that are both effective and efficient. Plus, it’s iterative, meaning we can continually improve our materials based on feedback.

So there you have it—a quick tour of the ADDIE process. Whether you’re an aspiring instructional designer or just curious about how learning experiences are crafted, understanding ADDIE is a great place to start! I hope this blog post helps clarify the ADDIE process for you.
If you found this content useful to you, your business, school or institution, comment and share.

Add Professional, Polished Voice-Overs to any of your Projects without Breaking Your Budget.

Instructional Design
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2022-05-18

If you use narration voice-overs in your training projects, you’re undoubtedly familiar with how difficult it is to find a colleague to help do your voice-over, the challenge of booking their time and scheduling retakes. And not to mention the massive amount of editing during post-production to get the polished, professional voice-overs because it’s tough to listen to a recording full of pops, white noise, and other distractions. The struggle is real. It’s time consuming, long and most times frustrating when there are changes.

A good voice-over must sound human and not robotic.

To overcome some of these challenges, I reverted to using text-to-speech (TTS) software. But using text-to-speech software brings other challenges. I spent countless hours and several dollars trying to find the right tool to do the job. A few themes of challenges I encountered:

    • Sounding robotic – Much as they try to convince you the synthetic voice-over is natural speech sounding, the voice still sounds synthetic
    • Pronunciation of words – If the organization you work for uses acronyms and lingos, prepare yourself for another layer of challenges. You’ll come across poorly pronounced words
    • Accents – I found a lot of effort is placed on US (North American) English accent in text-to-speech tools. When choosing other accents, the voice becomes more robotic and the amount of words are pronounced wrong
    • Languages – Just like accents, developers put a lot of effort on US (North American) English. When choosing another language to do text-to-speech, save your time. I recommend hiring voice-talent to do your voice-overs for your projects.

Imagine being able to create a human-sounding voice-over in mere seconds.

Everyone can tolerate mediocre voice-overs, but I will rapidly reach for the kill switch on anything that sounds muddy, fuzzy, or annoying. And undoubtedly, if the voice isn’t pristine, learners will get distracted by it and don’t, optimally, focus on the lesson.

Using voice-over narration in my projects is part of my core multi-media toolkit. When I stumbled across Speechelo™, a text-to-speech software, it brought natural human expressions into text-to-speech. It overcame the challenge of finding voice-talent, booking time and scheduling retakes. And eliminated the need for post-production editing.

Speechelo™ is the best online text-to-speech conversion software I have found so far.

Using Speechelo™ allowed me to create human-sounding voice-over in mere seconds. The tool is simple to use and intuitive. To create voice-overs, you simply paste your text into online tool and the integrated A.I. engine will run through the text, add punctuation, and insert notations needed to ensure a natural-sounding speech. You can layer in the choice of voice, generate it, and download it as an .mp3 for your projects.

The cost is a one-time fee (USD) for the standard basic plan, which I found affordable. But you have the option to upgrade to Speechelo™ Pro. With the Pro version, users will have a bigger variety of voices to choose from, different accents, a variety of background music, etc. Be mindful, a handful of voices still sound synthetic but it will take time to find the core voices you want to use.

Some of you may think that voice-talent is so much better. And maybe it is, but this is the next best option.

Try adding Speechelo™ to your multi-media toolkit. It’s saved me time, eliminated massive amounts of editing during post-production, definitely increased my productivity, and provided that professional, polished narration to my projects.

The video is courtesy of Speechelo Support

Learn the power to attract, to persuade, and to engage your audience using images

Instructional Design
Comments Closed
2020-06-23

A picture is worth a thousand words

That phrase may be cliché, but it is one all designers should live by. Images have the power to attract, to persuade, and to engage your audience. Images can make any design more powerful and enrich your content.

Image. Courtesy of Georgie Cobbs


Images are processed 60,000 times faster than text. People remember 10 percent of what they hear, 20 percent of what they read, and 80 percent of what they see.

The power of visual communication has rocketed with the rise of digital and social media. An image in your design can help you connect with the audience and make a strong impression even before they’ve even read a single word.

Adding images to your work can make all the difference in your design.  Keep it in mind when planning your next project.

The video is courtesy of GCFLearnFree.org.

Learn a little to make a big difference when typography matters

Instructional Design, Visual Design
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2020-05-11

Typography is about much more than making the words legible.

It’s central to the skills of a designer. But typography is much more than the “design” of the typeface and characters. It also includes the arrangement of the letters and characters, the point size, line length, the spacing between characters, and lines.

Image. Courtesy of Runyu Xia


Typography is everywhere and there are many typefaces. It can be overwhelming. The choice of typeface you choose and how it works with your layout, grid, colour scheme and so on will make the difference between a good, bad and great design.Selecting a typeface is daunting and intimidating. It doesn’t have to be. You just need to know a little to make a big difference. Knowing just a little will help you overcome typography challenges when planning your design.

When you realize how much thought that goes into carefully selecting a typeface, it will become easier to recognize the differences between typefaces, and understand why they might’ve been chosen in the first place.

The video is courtesy of GCFLearnFree.org.

Learn the five rules of design composition & layout

Instructional Design, Visual Design
Comments Closed
2020-05-06

Composition & layout are the building blocks of graphic design.

All graphic design projects start with the composition and layout. This gives your project structure, and determines which concepts work well together to obtain your desired result.

A strong composition will attract attention and engage the viewer whether the project is a print, web, mobile, and many more designs. Without a well composed layout, your project will basically fall apart, potentially miscommunicate, disengage, and eventually confuse your reader.

The following video provides you with five rules to consider when you begin your design.  This video is a great quick refresher but it’s also great for people who just dabble into visual design. By having the foundational knowledge of composition & layout, with time, and care, you can create an incredible experience for your viewer for any design project.

 

The video is courtesy of GCFLearnFree.org.

Better plan your designs with amazing colour combinations

Instructional Design, Visual Design
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2020-04-29

Colour plays an important role in the visual design of your project.

It can attract attention, organize content, emphasize elements, evoke emotion and help a design look aesthetically pleasing.


Designers work with colour on a daily basis. Colour is integral to good design when designing an mobile app, an eLearning, a print project, or a company brand.

Without knowing the fundamentals of colour,  you can spend hours trying to find the colour combinations for your project. These are hours you can spend on more important tasks on a project.

 

I found the following video as a great refresher. If you’re new to visual design, it can help you overcome hurdles and help you better plan your designs with amazing colour combinations.

The video is courtesy of GCFLearnFree.org.

Storyline 3: Capturing text of your learner and displaying it elsewhere

Instructional Design
0 Comments
2020-04-17

Learn how to personalize your project by allowing your learner to input their name in a field and have their name displayed on another page.

This is great feature to apply if you have a certificate of completion at the end your project or if you want to personalize it using the participants name.

Level of difficulty: Easy

Follow the detailed steps. Click the + to expand.

1. Select your first slide in slide view.
2. From the Insert tab, go to the Interaction Objects group.

3. Click the Input button.

4. From the options, click Text Entry Field from Data Entry category.

5. Place the text entry field in your slide.

You can apply these optional steps
• Rename the object in your timeline. For example, ParticipantName
• Change the properties of the object. For example, font type, size, or color

1. Go to the Triggers panel and click the click the Manage Project Variables button

2. The Variables window will appear. Notice a Variable is auto-generated when you created the Text Entry Field

3. Double-click the variable.
4. Refer to the variable Name and Default value fields and rename and add a default value. For example, YourName in the variable Name field and Insert your name in the Default value field.

Keep this variable name in mind. You will need to refer to this later in the project.
6. Click the OK button to close the Variable window.
7. Click the OK button to close the Variables window.

1. Select a slide where you want the data to be displayed
2. Click the Insert tab

3. From the Text group, click text box and insert it on our slide.
Important. Make sure your cursor is blinking in the text box.

4. Refer to the Insert tab

5. From the Text group, click the Reference button – a reference window will appear.

6. Select the Variable name. For example, YourName.
7. Click the OK button
8. The Variable will auto-populate in the text box.

9. Save and preview your project.

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Storyline 3: Restrict or lock down your navigation

Instructional Design
0 Comments
2020-03-18

Learn how to restrict or lock down navigation throughout a Storyline course until the timeline ends.

By applying this feature in your design, you’re making sure your learners don’t:

• Skip ahead by clicking the built-in next button
• Jump from one topic to the other using the built-in navigation menu

Only until the timeline has completed, the learner can move to the next page of their learning. Before following these steps, have your project ready with all your pages built and be in slide view.

Level of difficulty: Intermediate

Follow the detailed steps. Click the + to expand.

Loader image

1. Select your first slide in slide view.

2. From the HOME tab, click the Player button from the Publish section – the Player Properties window will appear.

3. Click the Menu button from the Data section. You will see a list of all your pages.

4. Click the gear icon for additional options – a Menu Options window will appear.

5. From the menu dropdown, select Restricted. When selecting Restricted, you allow the learner to jump to previous slides but not jump ahead. If you were to select Locked, learners can’t jump back or forward.

6. Click OK to close the Menu Options window.
7. Click OK to close the Player Properties window.

1. Click on the VIEW tab.
2. Open the slide master by clicking the Slide Master button.

3. Select the Master slide or Parent slide. Do not select the individual layouts.

4. Refer to the Triggers panel and click the Manage Project Variables button – the variables window will appear.

5. In the Variables window, click the “+” button to add a variable – a variable pop-up window will appear.

6. Enter the following:
• Name: For example, GoNext
• Type: True/False
• Default value: False

7. Click the OK button to close the Variable window
8. Click the OK button to close the Variables window

Trigger 1
1. Refer to the Triggers panel.

2. Click the Create a new trigger button – A Trigger Wizard window will appear.
3. Enter the following:
• Action: Adjust variable
• Variable: Select the newly created variable. For example, GoNext
• Operator: = Assignment
• Value: Value; False
• When: Timeline starts
• Object: Select the Slide Master (make sure you do not select from the drop-down any of the object on the slide)

4. Click OK to close the Trigger Wizard window.

Trigger 2
1. Refer to the Triggers panel.

2. Click the Create a new trigger button – A Trigger Wizard window will appear.
3. Enter the following:
• Action: Adjust variable
• Variable: Select the newly created variable. For example, GoNext
• Operator: = Assignment
• Value: Value; True
• When: Timeline ends
• Object: Select the Slide Master

4. Click OK to close the Trigger Wizard window.
5. Close the slide master by clicking the Close Slide Master View button from the Slide Master tab.

1. Select the first slide.
2. Refer to the Triggers panel.
3. Double click Jump to next slide trigger – the Trigger Wizard window will appear.

4. Click the Show Conditions button.

5. Click the “+” button to add a new “add” or “or” condition – the Add Trigger Condition window will appear.

6. Enter/select the following:
• List: Variable
• If: GoNext
• Operator: == Equal to
• Type: Value
• Value: True

7. Click the OK button to close the Add Trigger Condition window.
8. Click the OK button to close the Tigger Wizard window.

1. Refer to the Triggers panel on your first slide.
2. Highlight your Trigger with the new condition and click the Copy the Selected Trigger button.

3. Highlight your other slide by selecting your slide, press the SHIFT key, and click the last slide.

4. When all your slides are selected, press CTRL + V to paste the trigger with the new condition.
5. Visit each slide to verify the new trigger was pasted into it. Notice in each slide you should have two triggers to jump to next slide. They should include the original trigger without the condition and the new trigger with the condition.
6. Delete the original jump to next slide trigger each slide by highlighting the trigger and clicking the Delete the Selected Trigger button.

7. Save and preview your project.
8. Publish to SCORM or AICC.

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Storyline 3: Ensuring your learner watches an entire video before letting them continue

Instructional Design
Comments Closed
2020-01-25

Having an explainer video in your project is great. It makes the learning experience much more engaging.  But it’s not great if a learner can skip it.  

Building on my previous posting, having forced interactions, like watching a video, is great. Having forced interactions ensures your learners are visiting all the content before going forward with their training.

Before following these steps, have your video object in your project. As you go through the steps, notice similarities and patterns from my previous posting. This will help build your skills using storyline for future projects.

Level of difficulty: Intermediate

Follow the detailed steps. Click the + to expand.
Loader image

1. Refer to the Triggers panel and click the Manage project variables button to create a new variable – A variables window will appear

2. Click the “+” button to create a new variable – A variable pop-up window will appear

3. Input the following:
• Name: (for example, SlideMovieComplete)
• Type: True/False
• Value: False

4. Click the OK button

1. Refer to the Triggers panel
2. Click Create a new Trigger button – The trigger Wizard window will appear
3. Input/select the following:
• Action: Adjust Variable
• Variable: SlideMovieComplete
• Operator: = Assignment
• Value: Value; True
• When: Media completes
• Object: {select the name of your movie}

4. Click the OK button

1. Refer to the Triggers panel
2. Click Create a new Trigger button – the Trigger Wizard window will appear
3. Input/select the following in the Trigger Wizard:
• Action: Jump to slide
• Slide: next slide
• When: User clicks
• Object: Next Button

4. On Condition, click the “+” button (Add a “New” or “Or” condition) – the Add Trigger Condition pop-up window will appear

5. Input/select the following:
• List: Variable
• If: SlideComplete
• Operator: == Equal to
• Type: Value
• Value: True

6. Click the OK button to close the Add Trigger Condition pop-up window
7. Click the OK button to close the Trigger Wizard window
8. Save your project
9. Publish your project to AICC or to SCORM

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Storyline 3: Disabling the default Next button

Instructional Design
Comments Closed
2020-01-12

When you want to force your learner to review all aspects on a page, a feature you would like to add to your training design is to applying a True/False Variable on the default Next button. 

This is a great feature when you want forced interactions in your page before the learner can go to the next page.

Before you begin and applying these steps in your project, create buttons on your slide with visited states and pop-up layers. To learn how, visit my other posting here.

Level of difficulty: Intermediate

Follow the detailed steps. Click the + to expand.
Loader image

1. Refer to the Triggers panel and click the Manage project variables button to create a new variable – A variables window will appear

2. Click the “+” button to create a new variable – A variable pop-up window will appear

3. Input the following:
• Name: (for example, SlideComplete)
• Type: True/False
• Value: False

4. Click the OK button

An example of a specific event would be when the user clicked all the buttons.
1. Refer to the Triggers panel
2. Click Create a new Trigger button – The trigger Wizard window will appear
3. Input/select the following:
• Action: Adjust Variable
• Variable: SlideComplete
• Operator: = Assignment
• Value: Value; True
• When: State
• On: Select all the named buttons on the slide
• Are: Visited

4. Click the OK button

1. Refer to the Triggers panel
2. Click Create a new Trigger button – the Trigger Wizard window will appear
3. Input/select the following in the Trigger Wizard:
• Action: Jump to slide
• Slide: next slide (or name of a preferred slide)
• When: User clicks
• Object: Next Button

4. On Condition, click the “+” button (Add a “New” or “Or” condition) – the Add Trigger Condition pop-up window will appear

5. Input/select the following:
• List: Variable
• If: SlideComplete
• Operator: == Equal to
• Type: Value
• Value: True

6. Click the OK button to close the Add Trigger Condition pop-up window
7. Click the OK button to close the Trigger Wizard window
8. Save your project
9. Publish your project to AICC or to SCORM

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