Brent Schenkler points us to these great one page introductions to Web 2.0 stuff by Tim Davies. The idea is very reminiscent of John Carroll’s minimalist instruction approach: a brief concept about and why, steps to get started, and some tips. With good visual support. I’ve seen worse professional job aids!
The point is to give people the minimum guidance needed to get going. Carroll found that focusing on people’s goals, on the minimal instruction, and clear presentation trumped formal instructional design. I think too often we don’t give enough credit to our learners. These are good models for other new tools you’re introducing to folks too.
Brent says he guesses it didn’t take any ISD knowledge, but I’d say it took either a good knowledge of information mapping, ISD, applied cognitive science, or some way of matching how our brains work to the task at hand. It may be implicit, but there’s a repeated template that suggests some forethought. Check ’em out!
Hello Clark
Many thanks for the link.
I’ll see if I can take a look at the Carroll… sounds interesting.
There isn’t an explicit ISD approach in the one pagers I’ve written so far (I’ll have to admit to having needed to Google ISD to discover what it stood for). The template started originally just as a constraint to stop me writing pages and pages on each tool – but is strongly informed by my background in youth participation – designing tools and processes that empower individuals to make informed decisions and take action in relatively short spaces of time – often working in groups who are starting at very different points of experience and knowledge.
I’m keen to do some evaluation of the tools in the New Year to see how they help in different contexts – so I’ll certainly look at the different disciplines/models you’ve mentioned above to see how these may offer evaluative structures.
Tim
I was also inspired by the “One Page Guides.” I can definitely be accused of not giving the learner enough credit on a regular basis and the one page guides helped me realize that. I get stuck in the mode of “More is better” and end up confusing the key info. I am now taking a new approach to what I refer to as “Cheat-sheets” in my organization because of what I learned from the “One Page Guides.”
I’m thrilled if folks start moving beyond courses and start filling out other areas of the ‘performance ecosystem‘. Minimalism fits right above courses, in my mind. As to evaluation, make sure you’re measuring what matters, meaningful changes in preformance. Good luck!