Some days ago, I wrote about some basic design principles pertinent to the presentation of information. Taking that forward, this post specifically addresses the issue of ‘Usability’.
Over the last few weeks, I have been learning about the fundamental concepts and basic principles of designing electronic instructional media. These concepts are essential knowledge which constitutes a firm foundation, before one can be effective in an Instructional Designer’s role that involves media design.
Found this at Smashing Magazine – a list of 25 User Experience Videos that as the magazine puts it, ‘are worth your time’. It’s a bit dated, back from January.
Not much to say – make the time to watch the videos. They are filled with fascinating insights about the design of the user experience, from the very people who are at the forefront of UX. They’re fairly long videos at times.
A couple of month back I had shared a list of top 30 online resources for instructional designers to keep up with. That post seems to have got good circulation. Recently I came across this discussion on LinkedIn – best book for beginning instructional designers. The discussion has thrown up a great list of books for instructional designers worth sharing with our readers too.
Haven’t had enough time to blog, the result of preoccupation with a large project.
Having mentioned Web 3.0 often in the past, I continue my research into it. Last evening, this particular slide share presentation about Web 3.0 and beyond popped into my inbox. Steve Wheeler at the University of Plymouth put it together.
Abhijit Kadle | July 8th, 2010
We’ve had some new instructional designers join Upside Learning recently. They come from varied backgrounds, with varying levels of experience and expertise in eLearning development. We don’t offer much in terms of training other than a bit of induction niceness. While they’ve been assigned to work on projects on one hand, they’re also required to hit the ground running when it comes to media design.
Yes, I’ve not been blogging as regularly as I might have liked to. I’ve been busy with projects – bread and butter.
We’ve always focused on instructional design being essential to the design of courseware. That’s certainly true, it’s the first step to make a learning solution instructionally sound. The next in line is to make it interesting, engaging, interactive. Too many solutions fail at that crucial stage. I’ve seen too many hours of what is commonly termed ‘shovelware’ that result from this failure.
“How To” is a procedure which is defined by someone in number of steps. The web is full of sites that share information and tutorials about “How To” design and develop characters. However it is also important to know the “Why” to designing a character. Knowing the answers to “Why” helps one take decisions about the design process.
The Tuts+ (pronounced tutsplus) education network which has tons of “How To” tutorials is now focusing on “Why” tutorials as well.
I’ve been continuing my research into user experience and interaction design. I stumbled on this really great presentation on SlideShare by Whitney Hess – 10 Most Common Misconceptions about User Experience Design. She makes points about user experience design that instructional designers could learn from. I’m taking the liberty to reproduce and rehash the points she raises from an eLearning perspective.
Over so often I get asked what fundamentals of game design apply to the design of learning games – a very difficult question to answer that. In my opinion, every sort of principle ever used in the design of commercial video games applies to the creation of digital learning games as well. My opinion is that game design can’t really be reduced to a set of guidelines that instructional designers can follow to design games that teach. I’d even go so far as to say that game design is more of a philosophy than anything else, once you imbibe that philosophy the gaminess starts to permeate all your design, it fundamentally changes the way you think about user interface and experience design.
Abhijit Brahme | March 30th, 2010
We often create scenario based courses for the engineering industry. Because they are for engineers; we consider the best way to represent graphics and animations is to use 3D isometric views with orthographic projections.
Trained engineers and technicians find it easy to read this type of graphic [if rendered properly] as it has clear projections on all three axes. All the lines in this type of drawings are parallel to their respective axis; so there is no distortion in the drawing no matter what the size of surface it’s drawn on.
Interaction design is almost always a synthesis of traditional methods and approaches from varied established disciplines. When I write about interaction, most people reading it view it in the context of software or some form of digital technology.
“Interaction” isn’t only about technology or software. Industrial designers are taught to design ‘things’ that engage people and facilitate their relationships with those things.
