Here’s a story about where performance support would’ve made a task much easier.

And, as always, the text.

The other day, I had a classic need for performance support. Of course, it didn’t exist. So here’s a cognitive story about when and where a job aid would help.

Our Bosch dishwasher stopped near the beginning of the cycle, and displayed an icon of a water tap. The goal was to get the dishwasher running again. What with the layer of undrained water, we figured there was some sort of problem with the drain, clogged or the pump broken. M’lady had cleaned the drain, but the icon persisted. What now? Of course we could call a service person, but trying to be handy and frugal (and safe), we wanted to find out if it was something I could deal with. So, off to the manual.

Well, in this case, since I didn’t know where the manual was, I went online. I accessed the site and downloaded the manual. Only to find no guide to what the icons mean. What?!? This violates what we know about our brains, in this case that our memory is limited. The support section of the site did list the error codes, but numerically, not by icon. So, I had an indication I couldn’t map to a problem, let alone a solution. 

This is a real flaw! If you’re gonna use icons, provide a guide! Don’t assume they’re interpretable. (This had happened once before with this same appliance, with an impenetrable icon and no clue.) As a result, I had to call the service line. That wait took awhile (with more people staying home, they’re using their dishwashers more, and the appliances are therefore breaking down more). Once, the call dropped. The second time I had to stop because I had an upcoming call. The third time, however, I got through.

And a perfectly nice person listened, asked some questions, and then instructed me through a process. After hitting cancel (which automatically tries to drain everything and reset to zero) by simultaneously pressing two buttons linked by a line on the control panel, I heard noises in the sink like it was draining. After a minute, I was told to go ahead and open it up (yep, drained), turn it off and on, and then try running the cleaning cycle again. And, voila, it worked! (Yay!)

So, what’s wrong with this picture? First of all, there should be a clear explanation of what the icon means, as indicated above. Second, it should be clearly tied to a process to address the problem, including intermediate steps.This is so common, I am quite boggled that the great engineers that made our (very good) dishwasher aren’t complemented with a great technical communications team who write up a useful manual to support. It. Is. Just. Silly!

Note: this isn’t a learning experience. It’s just fine that I don’t recall what the last time’s icon was or what it meant, and maybe what this icon meant and what I should do. It should be infrequent enough that it’d be unreasonable for me to have to recall. Instead, I should be able to look it up. Put information in the world!  In the long term, this should save them buckets of money because most people could self help. Clearly, they’ve gone to numeric codes, but they could’ve just added in the associated icons, or given a mapping from icon to numeric code. Something to help folks who have the pics. 

This is just bad design, and it’s so obvious how to ameliorate it. People will self-help many times, but only if they can!  Just as you shouldn’t be creating a training course when a job aid will do, you can save a help call when a job aid can address most of the problems. Use performance support when it makes sense, and doing so comes from understanding how we actually think, work, and learn. When you do, you can design solutions that meet real needs. And that’s what we want to do, no?

On Twitter today was a question from an organization that, frankly, puzzled me. Further, I think it’s important to understand why this was a bad question. So here let me unpack several illustrative problems.

First, the question asks “What kind of learning do you prefer?” My initial response is: why would you ask that? What learners prefer has little to do with what outcomes you need to achieve. We should design for the learning outcomes.

Then, there’s the list of elements:

• Video-based learning
• Article-based learning
• How to guides
• Interactive quizzes

There are several problems with this list. First, why this subset? This isn’t a full suite of alternatives. What about simulations, scenarios, or games? AR or VR? Podcasts? Why this selection?

Then, the options lack full definitions. What do they mean by ‘video-based learning’?  Is it just a video, with no assessment? Is it really ‘learning’ then? Of course, if the ‘-based’ means assessment as well, how is that separate from ‘interactive quizzes’? Similarly for articles. What is included?

Yet guides and quizzes aren’t ‘-based’. Are we assuming they’re full learning solutions? That’s questionable. A how-to guide, aka performance support, might yield an outcome, but it doesn’t guarantee learning. There are lots of factors that would influence that. And interactive quizzes, without models and examples, would be a slow way to develop expertise.

Another problem is in the separation of the elements. So, for instance, a ‘how to’ guide could be a video or an article! There’s the Youtube video I used to fix my dryer, or the step by step instructions I used to figure out how to run cables on a monitor. Likewise, interactive quizzes could include video or point to an article. These aren’t mutually exclusive categories.

The point is that this is a bad question. It’s already been taken down (I wasn’t the only one to question it!). Still, there’re lessons to be learned. (Maybe the most important is to ensure your social media marketing person has enough knowledge of learning not to do such silly things, but I can’t assume that’s the locus of the problem. It’s just a hypothesis I’ve seen play out elsewhere. ;) While there are times it makes sense to ask provocative questions, there’s also a reason to have conceptual clarity.  At least, that’s my take, I welcome yours!

Sparked by a conversation, I generate some animation thoughts.

And, as always, a transcript.

In a conversation the other day, my colleague mentioned how she was making a practice of creating animations. I found this interesting, because while I think animations are important, I don’t do them all that much (or so I thought). Particularly intriguing was the notion of what principles might guide animations, including when to use them. I was prompted to reflect, and so here are some animation thoughts.

First, let’s be clear what I mean. I’ve argued that we don’t use graphic novel/comic formats enough, and that likewise applies to cartoons. Which are also known as animations. Yet, that’s not really what I’m talking about. I think we could use them more, but that’s another reflection.

Instead, here I’m talking about animated diagrams. And I think there are times when these are not just engaging, but cognitively important. Diagrams map conceptual relationships to spatial ones, and can add additional coding with color and shape. Animations add the dimension of time, so these relationships can change. In my categorization, these are dynamic diagrams, useful when the conceptual relationships change in important ways depending on other factors.

Interestingly, in the conversation, it came up what one form of her animations were diagram builds. I use diagrams a lot, not only to communicate, but as a tool for my own understanding! And, I’d done some builds, but after Will Thalheimer’s Presentation Science course I realized I needed to do that more systematically (and now do so). Building diagrams is helpful. Cognitively, a diagram can be overwhelming if there are too many elements. By starting at one point, and gradually adding in other elements, you can prevent cognitive overload. And in a presentation, in particular, you want to highlight important points.  

However, I also think that there are things worth indicating how they work dynamically. Like how a content system would work, e.g. context and rules combining to pull content out by description. Or how coordinates change based upon trigonometric values. I haven’t done much of this, for the simple reason that I don’t have a good animation tool. And, yes, I’m aware that you do motion in PowerPoint and/or Keynote, but I haven’t gotten into it. Time for a skill upgrade!

There are problems with animations, and guidelines. John Sweller’s cognitive load plays out with Dick Mayer’s work on multimedia research (as captured in his book with Ruth Clark: eLearning and the Science of Instruction), as indicated above. Thus, you shouldn’t try to have people read text while watching visual dynamics (use audio). Also, you should help people focus attention by removing extraneous details and/or highlighting the appropriate focus. 

The general principles of media apply as well. Accessibility suggests some alternate representations. Timing suggests having a pause ability for any animation longer than a certain time, and of course the ability to replay. Similarly, the animation design should use appropriate white space, highlighting, and other aspects that make it visually clear and appealing. 

Overall, I’d suggest that there are times when animations are the best option for conveying dynamic conceptual information. To use them, however, you have to take into account our cognitive limitations. So, these are some of my animation thoughts. I welcome yours. 

Ok, I know I just talked about this, but something happened to sharpen my understanding. Recently, a colleague was advocating, for a product she’s responsible for managing, that she was aware that people were “not used to reflowable text” And, frankly, that surprised me, but also explains the problems I’ve railed about in the past. Because reflowable text thinking is a key to moving beyond hardwired formatting to separating content from description. 

As I’ve bemoaned before, the notion of people hardcoding the way a page looks drives me nuts. If you want to change anything (and I frequently find ways to improve things), it’s very hard to do. It takes a lot of fussing. And, yet, I have been aware of tools that are just for doing detailed page layout. This comes from the days of print, and having to handset the lead into a page to produce a newspaper and the like. But we’re not there anymore.

Too, I’ve had an advantage. I had the opportunity to learn to use a word processor very early on. I had vi, the Unix visual text editor to write with, allowing editing, and LaTex to specify visual details, while I was a college student (I was glad to abandon my typewriter!). Then, I got a Mac II and Microsoft Word (2.0) to write my PhD thesis. This was a boon, because I could write, and define things like margins and what headings look like. And, automagically, my paper came out from the printer (ultimately, I had to tweak a few things) ready to pass the library lady with her ruler. 

The point was that I was not fussing about how each page looked, I was instead specifying things like:

• that a top level header required a page break beforehand (e.g. starting a new chapter), 
• hat the next level header was left justified, 
• that a heading should always be printed with the next paragraph or line of text, 
• and so on. 

And when it was printed, it looked right. If I changed paper size, or margins, or what have you, it adapted. 

That’s separating out what I’m saying from how it behaves across screens, devices, printers, etc. And that was useful for the web, mobile, and more. It’s responsive design. And, it’s the key to moving our content and experiences forward. 

It’s about describing behaviors, instead of hand-coding them. And having them refer to centralized descriptions. Which is a lot like coding, having new objects inherit the properties of their predecessors. And, it’s about Web 3.0, the semantic web. 

Look, this has seemed to be something not all folks seem to be able to get their mind around. And, I hope that’s not true, that it’s learnable. Because we have to come to grips with this. It’s already happening across the business in pretty much every other area. We can’t lag; we need reflowable text thinking, because our audience needs flexible content. When we can gain considerable power at the expense of some rethinking, that’s a fair tradeoff, in my mind. I welcome your thoughts. 

There’s a potential belief that I’m the ‘myths‘ person, and I’ve both principled and practical reasons to try to counter that. Here’s my thinking.

And, as always, the text.

I’ve a dilemma. These days, if someone posts some learning myth, people tend to let me know. And I don’t really mind, but I do worry that it buckets me as the ‘myths’ person. Despite the book, that’s not really my role. Another way to bucket me would be the learning science person (my next book). That’s better, but maybe still not quite accurate. So what the <x> person am I?

Yes, I did write a book about myths. But the purpose there was to point out bad things we’re doing, so we can instead do better things. In fact, that’s included: what you should do instead. It’s really about better design, not about myths.

Similarly, the learning science book coming out is a primer on the underlying cognitive science and the implications for learning design. With the emphasis on learning design, not learning science. It concludes with two chapters on the implications and the important bits. So it’s not about learning science per se, but as a basis for what we do with it.

Really, what I am is a learning science translator, not a myths debunker. Practically, that’s because there’s essentially no money in being a myths debunker. They might hire a talk, but what’s the business model? Are you going to hire me to come in and debunk your myths? Er, that’d be no. But there’s a principled reason, too. 

It’s about redesigning your learning design processes to better incorporate learning science (and avoid myths). The evidence is that the processes aren’t well done, because we see too much bad learning. And the rationales are myriad: lack of knowledge, focus on efficiency, tool orientations, and more. Consequently, the services are similarly varied: workshops on learning science-informed design, consulting on the minimal changes to keep impacts on budget low but increase the effectiveness of the outcomes, and of course beyond: to performance consulting, informal learning, and more.

Because, L&D should properly be aligned with learning (and cognitive) science. And there are many ways to improve. That’s what I’m about, and that’s why I’m here. You can think of it as learning engineering (applied learning science), but that’s a term still in flux in terms of meaning, since it also can mean the folks who spin the bits on complex platforms for adaptive learning, or the folks who analyze data to improve outcomes. 

I’ve been recently calling myself a learning experience design strategist. Which is conceptually accurate, and yet unwieldy (since no one knows what it means). Yet it’s about being strategic in learning experience design: creating processes that successfully integrate learning science with engagement to create outcomes that are effective, even transformative.

There are lots of things I do: 

• Improve learning design processes to make learning more engaging and effective
• Architect design approaches to address learning needs
• Understand new technologies’ ability to enhance  learning experiences
• Educate clients, audiences, and employees about the nuances of learning design
• Review designs to improve effectiveness and engagement 
• Convince clients (internal and/or external) and audiences about the value of learning science-based approaches
• Interpret learning science and engagement research into practical guidelines

All of these are focused on being strategic about learning design. And I struggle to find another term: learning architect, learning strategist, and more. Still, there are several colleagues who are myths debunkers and learning science translators, and I’ll suggest that you should follow, listen to, and most importantly, hire us. So, I’m not the myths person, but we do need more people applying learning science appropriately, and getting help to do so well. So whatever you want to term my role (suggestions welcome ;), do apply what we’re talking about. Here’s to better learning design!

In this fourth, and final, post about making it meaningful, I talk about process. You need to systematically acquire the necessary additional information to make learning experiences work. And, of course, to then use them. All explored more in the workshop.

And, as always, the text.

This is the fourth (and final) post about how to ‘make it meaningful’. I’ve talked about the key principle, some of the tips and tricks, explored how to tweak some of the elements, and here I want to talk a bit about the necessary process in creating experiences that matter. Here, I’ll talk about analysis, brainstorming, and tuning.

In most respects, when we do analysis, we’re largely focusing on the necessary cognitive elements. That is, what the learner needs to do, what the learner already knows. And the associated models, and examples. If we’re really being good, we collect misconceptions as well. However, we need to go further for experience design. Yet, we have an advantage.

Usually, we see subject matter experts as ‘the enemy’. They can be hard to get sufficient time with, they can be somewhat condescending, and they too often focus on knowledge. But for our purposes, they have an important advantage: they’ve found this stuff (whatever it is) fascinating enough to spend the necessary time to become an expert in it!  That’s valuable, because it gives us a handle on intrinsic interest.

If we can find what makes a domain interesting to one person, we can tap into that. We should be making it manifest in the learning experience. Then, if it’s not of interest to the learner, maybe they’re not the right person for this topic. If it’s generic enough, the problem may be on our side!

We also want to find out what interests our learners. This forms the basis upon which we build worlds in which our stories occur. We want to wrap interesting contexts around the goals we’re giving learners, but we can’t do that without knowing what’s ‘interesting’!

Once we’ve gathered the necessary information, then we need to start mapping out the elements of learning. And we should start with practice. There’s the necessity of being creative around the design process. And this is where what’s known about creativity matters.

I’ve written before about brainstorming, and in brief, there are things that work and things that don’t. We want to diverge and converge, exploring ideas broadly before evaluating them. And we need individuals to think on their own before sharing those ideas. 

Note that while we might have to do it alone, the best outcomes will come with a diverse team sharing the goal of creating a great learning experience. I’d even suggest that teams where mostly you work alone carrying a design forward make a habit of connecting at certain points in the design process, and particularly at the space of getting creative around practice and the overall story settings.

Of course, that doesn’t mean what you come up with will be right. Tuning should be built into your process. That is, prototyping, testing, and refining should be expected. Humans are a funny lot, and recognizing that our expectations and what actually happens won’t necessarily converge. 

And you want to use the lowest fidelity prototype you can. You want to minimize investment in making ideas concrete early on, so that you’ve less sunk costs to fret over. Look to be agile early one, trying things out and iteratively refining rather than coming up with an overarching plan and then implementing the whole thing. 

There’s more, of course, but these are some of the areas where we need to modify what we do. There’s more detail to this, of course, and if you’re interested in the more, I’ll encourage you to sign up for the workshop. This is the topic of the fourth and final week!  Of course, it’s a full workshop, so in addition to the content, we’ll have live sessions to workshop some ideas and discuss what we’ve done, and assignments with personal feedback.  Hope to see you there!

All posts in the Make It Meaningful series:

First: Hook

Second: Tips’n’Tricks

Third: Elements

Four Process