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.

The three that I really liked were:

NYC IxDA – Tap is the New Click – Dan Saffer from Interaction Design Association on Vimeo.

UX Week 2008 | Rachel Hinman | Adaptive Path from Adaptive Path on Vimeo.

1. e-Learning and the Science of Instruction by Ruth Colvin Clark & Richard E. Mayer
2. Making Sense of Online Learning : A Guide for Beginners and the Truly Skepticalby Patti Shank & Amy Sitze
3. The Online Learning Idea Book: 95 Proven Ways to Enhance Technology-Based and Blended Learning edited by Patti Shank
4. The E-Learning Handbook: Past Promises, Present Challenges by Saul Carliner & Patti Shank
5. Designing Successful e-Learning by Michael Allen
6. Evidence-Based Training Methods by Ruth Clark
7. Preparing Instructional Objectives : A Critical Tool in the Development of Effective Instruction by Robert F. Mager
8. Instructional Design Strategies and Tactics by Cynthia B. Leshin, Joellyn Pollock, and Charles M. Reigeluth
9. ISD: From the Ground Up : A No-Nonsense Approach to Instructional Design by Chuck Hodell
10. The Art of Facilitation by Dale Hunter and Anne Bailey and Bill Taylor
11. The Systematic Design of Instruction by Walter Dick, Lou Carey, James O. Carey
12. Instructional Design by Tillman J. Ragan & Patricia L. Smith
13. eLearning by Design by William Horton
14. Graphics for Learning: Proven Guidelines for Planning, Designing, and Evaluating Visuals in Training Materials by Ruth C. Clark and Chopeta Lyons
15. Guide to eLearning by Micheal Allen
16. Creative Training Techniques Handbook: Tips, Tactics, and How-To’s for Delivering Effective Training by Robert Pike
17. Made to Stick by the Heath brothers
18. Designing Effective Instruction by Gary R. Morrison, Steven M. Ross, and Jerrold E. Kemp
19. The Principles of Instructional Design by Gagne et al
20. e-Learning and the Science of Instruction: Proven Guidelines for Consumers and Designers of Multimedia Learning by Ruth C. Clark, Richard E. Mayer
21. Train for Results by Catherine Mattiske
22. First Principles of Instruction by M David Merrill

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.

Interesting to see that in the world of Web 3.0 , eLearning will actually transform from a content delivery and tracking mechanism. The rapid development of ontologies and taxonomies, the emergence of artificial intelligence allowing digital agents and assistance, and powerful mobile computing will probably mean the death of the LMS as we know it.

On the other hand, the proportion of content consumers to creators, which is currently heavily skewed towards consumption will even out with increasing number of creators. While it may seem unlikely at this time, I can envisage a future where ‘courseware’ as we know it won’t really exist. Instead, intelligent agents will gather and aggregate information from repositories and present those appropriately at the time of need.

It was also nice to see that some of the technologies that we’ve been experimenting with – like Augmented Reality and Virtuality – feature in the presentation. Take a look, great infographics and clear presentation.

During the initial period that IDs work for Upside, a significant part of their role involves media design and writing storyboards. Learning these is best on the job, and when the work situation constantly demands you apply your new-found knowledge.

Having said that, it helps IDs if they’re given some insights into the fundamental concepts and basic principles of designing electronic instructional media. To help them along, I’ve been planning a series of hour long weekly training sessions that will cover the basics of new media design. I came up with ten topics that I’d really like to cover. To me, this is essential knowledge before one can be effective in an ID role that’s mostly about media design.

Note the absence of instructional design theory is deliberate. It needs to be very practical oriented.

1. Storyboarding
   1. Basic principles
   2. Media Design
2. Reviews
   1. Storyboards and Design
   2. Multi-pass Method
3. Content Structuring
4. Media Design
   1. Multimedia & Communication
   2. Mayer and Clark
   3. Tips and Tricks
5. Visual Communication
   1. Principles
   2. Form, composition, layouts, etc
   3. Visualization & Varied Exercises
6. Design of Interaction
   1. Principles of digital interaction
   2. Metaphors and Interfaces
   3. Interaction types and appropriate uses
7. Elements of Game-play and gaminess
8. Brainstorming Visuals
9. Finished Product Review (course alphas, betas,…)
10. Merrill’s CDT and Assessment writing

This is what comes to my mind. Add a comment if you have suggestions.

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.

I see just three reasons why eLearning should focus some more on the media design.

1. Media is Experience – It’s the experience that matters and media is what you’re using to build it. When designers think of presentations in space and time, interactions, graphics, they don’t think of those as part of the media but as a elements in a learning solution. That view holds, but it’s also important to understand media and the ability to deliver a ‘sticky’ experience. That depends to a very large extent how you build engagement and interaction into your media choice. Focus on media if you want to create sticky learning, but do not ignore fundamental learning design.
2. Media is Malleable – Media is capable of all sort of contortions and a creator/developer can shape it exactly as they like. If you’re not melding the media around the design of the experience, you’re missing a crucial element. It’s important to differentiate between the design of media and visual appeal. Just because the media is visually appealing doesn’t mean it’s effective design. This is perhaps the most common misconception I see when reviewing course output.Seriously, stop thinking of beautiful media, start thinking of effective media. Beauty without purpose has no place in eLearning. Media for purely aesthetic reasons would be termed art. eLearning on the other hand is very specifically ‘designed’ to impart knowledge or skills. Focus on media to deliver the right message the right way.
3. Media is Digital – Digital media is relatively new and quite different from the forms of media we’ve seen in history. As a result, designers are still understanding digital media, it’s metaphors and forms. Attempting to use book-like or paper-driven metaphors do not work well in the digital space. Perhaps the biggest difference and advantage digital media offers over traditional media forms is in its ability to support interaction. One might debate that the design of interaction is very different from media design. I’d disagree, if media is digital, then interaction is a huge part of it. So I look at interaction design as a subset of digital media design. It’s almost impossible to imagine digital media without interaction. Interaction holds great value when designing learning experience, as it allows users to engage with the content at a level that was not possible just a few years ago.

Having said this, it’s also very important to know that media evolves. As learning designers, we need to consider the constraints and opportunities that emerge from this evolution. If we don’t, we’ll end up with disjoint offerings. I’d hate it if someone labeled something I designed ‘crap-ware’ or ‘shovel-ware’, it’d seem a failure.

The Tuts+ (pronounced tutsplus) education network which has tons of “How To” tutorials is now focusing on “Why” tutorials as well. They plan to put up two week ‘Sessions’ on various creative subjects like interface design, illustrative typography and creative freelancing, etc. Each session is a block of articles, interviews, tutorials and content on a particular creative subject. A session will have these posted every day – like this – http://sessions.tutsplus.com/creative/ The first session is about creative character illustration and they have already (it’s just day 4 of the session today) shared a lot of useful information there.

I think this is a great resource for all Graphic Designers working in Custom eLearning Development who often need to create scenario based content for different domains like management, sales, production, etc. Well designed and appropriate characters certainly help in creating more effective and engaging scenarios. Using these tutorials, even instructional designers can understand what goes into creating a good character and how they could influence a graphic designer when getting characters for their scenarios designed and illustrated.

1. User Experience Design is not User Interface Design – Yes, it’s not really about the user interface at all. In typical elearning, it’s the content player window that offers basic navigation and interaction. Designers spend a lot of time on the interface and visual appeal of the player. It’s important to understand that a visually pleasing and well designed interface does not equate to a pleasing user experience. Focus on the experience and NOT the individual components of the user interface.
2. User Experience Design is not a step in the process – Whitney makes a crucial point with this one. User experience design is not something that’s a part of the process; rather the entire process must be modeled around the design of the experience. Contrasted with typical elearning development, this is the total opposite.  Current eLearning development processes revolve around instructional outcomes and meeting those with solutions that use technology and content; there is NO or rare focus around designing experiences. Inverting this to purpose content and technology to provide an experience is a better way to look at it.
3. User Experience Design is not just about technology – In eLearning, both content and technology is used to provide the learning experience. It goes without saying that for the learning to effective, proper attention to design, the use of content and associated technology must blend smoothly. Focusing on just one of these detracts from the learning experience.
4. User Experience Design is not just about usability – eLearning has to be usable if humans are expected to learn from it. It’s almost impossible to learn something if during the experience, you find the content hard to access and tools difficult to use. While usability is important, user experience design is not about making your solution more usable. Usability matters of course, to the extent that it supports or to some extent even enhances the experience. Think of it this way, you can create an imminently usable learning solution, but it’s useless without offering a good learning experience.
5. User Experience Design is not just about the user – For learning designers, they aren’t just users – they are learners.  Trained instructional designers spend substantial periods of time understanding and designing for the learner. It’d also help if the designers of the learning experience spent some time understanding the technology that delivers the experience. User experience design involves balancing all aspects required to provide a quality learning experience.
6. User Experience Design is not expensive – I don’t know quite what to make of this misconception, except to agree that its one. A similar construct applies to learning experience design as well. Good learning experiences aren’t expensive to develop, what they require is careful attention to design, choice of media and delivery technology. Over time, I’ve found you can create great learning experiences on a budget.
7. User Experience Design is not easy – One could go so far as to say nothing is easy. That doesn’t imply that we stop ‘designing experiences’ because of the difficulty and challenges involved. Creating effective learning experiences demands that we consider the requirements to do so before embarking on the development process.
8. User Experience Design is not the role of one person or department – Pretty much the same applies to the design of learning experiences. It’s never the role of a single person or department; varied cross- functional teams are required to design and develop a quality learning experience. It’s unrealistic to expect instructional designers to take ownership of the learning experience. While, I agree they do drive the design of the experience. The actual design and creation is still left to the development team; creating good user experiences is about teamwork, cross functional competence, and a clear vision of the learner experience sought to be delivered.
9. User Experience Design is not a single discipline – This is my personal favorite amongst the ten. User experience design and similarly learning experience design aren’t something easily done. Just like the design of games, the design of learning experiences is part philosophy, part skills and part technique. Good learning experience designers draw from a variety of disciplines – instructional design, information architecture, interaction design, visual design, communication design, game design, industrial design, media design and other such. To be able to deliver a quality learning experience, individuals or teams need to be skilled across such a variety of domains.
10. User Experience Design is not a choice – yes, this applies equally well to learning experience design as well. Oftentimes, the delivery of a quality learning experience takes a backseat to meeting the ‘instructional outcomes’ or ‘technology limitations’ or ‘budgetary limitations’ or even ‘deadlines and go-live dates’ on occasion. This should never really be the case, regardless of the limitations and constraints, the designer should still be focused around creating and delivering a quality learning experience. In doing so, (focusing on delivery quality learning) learning experience design takes precedence and becomes a natural part of the learning design and development process.

Take the time to look at the original presentation, its great and include lots of great graphics that could give learning designers loads of ideas about the way design the learning experience.

As a learning designer my primary responsibility is viewed as creating learning content and systems that meet instructional outcomes. I’ve started to take a different view – what’s more important for me as a designer is to deliver an ‘experience’. Today one aspect of offering a contemporary experience means leveraging media and metaphors from popular culture. Games have started to permeate popular culture, and this results in the need to include ‘gaminess’ in learning interactions to offer an engaging learning experience.

Playing video games is one obvious way to imbibe the essential philosophy of digital games and the varied game-play mechanics. The other is to look at other’s experiences, and there are many who’ve documented their game design experiences in various blogs. I’m listing (in no particular order) some of the ones we follow at Upside, perhaps you’ll find some good reading.

1. Philomath Games – A constantly updated blog that includes posts that discuss a variety of game design and development issues.  I’m an immediate fan of anyone who proclaims “I believe that game development is inherently about learning. I believe that interactivity itself, as an art and a science, is fundamentally closer than all previous human media to the thought processes integral to human identity. What we engage in when we play has fundamental similarities to the scientific method, and the means by which we explore and understand the world….” more about that here.
2. Game Design Blog – Another frequently updated blog that contains a wealth of information about game design and development. The posts are categorized differently from most other blogs – ‘21 Behaviours of a Great Designer’; an interesting angle.
3. A Games Design Blog – Rob Hale’s blog is another that covers the entire gamut of game design and development activities. He particularly offers a great first person view on what’s happening in the game design world, gives examples and provides some very useful insights.
4. TooMuchImagination – A blog that hasn’t been updated in the recent months, but it still contains some very telling posts about game design and development.
5. Applied Game Design – Wonderful posts on game and interaction design; definitely recommended. I especially like the post on creating a game design document; you might want to check it out.
6. Casual Game Design – An old site, now dysfunctional, it remains one of my personal favorites, this blog gives great insights into casual games. That’s especially interesting because most learning games need to be casual in nature – easy to learn, quick to play with, and containing simple game mechanisms and reward structures.
7. Fine Game Design – Writes about game interface design; there also tends to be interesting news from academia about the world of game design.
8. Costik – An old blog that ran out of steam, but still contains fascinating posts on games. The author moved on to Play This Thing!
9. Game Musings – Often talks about games for the iPhone and Facebook; which aligns really well with our interests in those areas – mobile gaming and social gaming. Eventually, I believe there is significant potential
10. _BlackBored – Alright, this isn’t quite a blog, however it hosts some of the liveliest discussions, best articles and quite literally a ton of other stuff about games; a truly amazing place to learn.
11. Screen Play – Great blog about various aspects of game design and development. I especially like the articles that give perspectives about driving projects creatively, yet being able to manage the development process well enough to deliver a refined product on time and within budget. These are constraints we see commonly in the learning industry.

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.

According to Wikipedia -

Isometric projection is a form of graphical projection, more specifically, a form of axonometric projection. It is a method of visually representing three-dimensional objects in two dimensions, in which the three coordinate axes appear equally foreshortened and the angles between any two of them are 120 degrees.

A lot of popular game graphics are developed using isometric views with orthographic projections. Age of Empires, SimCity, and Transport Tycoon, social games on Facebook like Farm Vile, Café World, all these games have 2D graphics but with are imparted with the feel of 3D using the same technique.

When it comes to creating these graphics; the best way is to use a grid like the one shown here. This grid helps to produce graphics with accurate dimensions, angles, and projections that you want to display. This grid basically has an angle of 120o as shown in the diagram.

We develop graphics in Adobe Flash using pretty much the same grid. As a graphic designer you have to be very careful when it comes to create complex graphic scenarios like as factory layout with open roof; where you need to display a lot of objects present within the premises. Every object has to be in proportion to each other. Based on the number of objects to be displayed you can make choices about the scale of the grid to use. At the same time you have to think about the light source. In our experience, it’s best not to keep the light source on the left or right as it becomes difficult to manage shadows on opposite sides; we prefer our light source on the top of the objects.

At times, isometric views can create illusions and then they become very difficult to read; take a look at the example below and you’ll see what we mean. Designers need to be careful about the placement of the objects in the scenario environment.

One cool thing about using isometric views with orthographic projections is that graphics or even animations created can be used another time by simply flipping them.

“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.

These days, those things could range from information, objects, and activities to services and systems. This is a very broad range of activities that involve interaction design.With the growing convergence of physical form and computing an entirely new style of digital interaction design is emerging, an area called “tangible” interaction design,  this is an area where designers seek to create objects or artifacts that interact with people, react to them, behave with them. This is not just about computing ability or adding intelligence to objects. The focus is always the human experience and behavior. Tangible interaction designers work on the integration of technology and its effects on human experience.

Design has always been about interaction, and interaction is something that’s tangible. Over the time one major factor that’s emerged to influence tangible design is the growing physical embodiment of computing. Again, the iPhone is a good example of just such a physical embodiment of computing. It’s really quite simple – as a designer of physical things, you must now decide whether to embed software in the ‘thing’, something that’s very common these days. As a designer and writer of software, we must consider and use the limitations and affordances of the real world. New paradigms of interaction are emerging because of the instantiation of such technology. Integrated form and computing will enhance our experiences with objects, systems and the very places we inhabit. We’ll rapidly be living in a world with adaptive, responsive, real-world physical objects that invite interaction. Objects will be more ‘alive’ than ever and you’ll possibly never look at the toothbrush the same way again if it interacts with you.

Embedded computing forces a change in the direction of design, simply by making objects that just weren’t possible to create a decade ago. Interaction design is not just screen-based digital interaction anymore. Tangible interaction is the physical embodiment of computation. Tangible interaction designers must use traditional interaction design, engineering, computing, and robotics in a mash-up of skills and methods. We must start to think and make in physical form, electronics, and software. We must work across the old disciplinary boundaries – form and computing.
Form is an important element in design and similarly so in tangible interaction. Form visually communicates and physically represents a ‘thing’s functionality, it gives cues for understanding, and provides the basis for interaction. Form connects with computing through sensors and effectors .

Sensors provide input. The simplest sensor is a switch; buttons dominate our interaction with electromechanical products. There are loads of sensors out there – temperature, movement, pressure, force, moisture, chemicals, stretch and strain, etc. Effectors provide output. Used as indicators, LEDs are used to indicate an electromechanical device’s state. There are audio indicators too, beeps, bleeps, dings, and buzzes. We could do so much more with sound design. Motors are effectors as well – providing motion and other physical action. For example, vibrator motors in cell phones bring a physical quality to digital interaction.

The new element in design is software, a fundamentally abstract and disembodied way to prescribe behavior. Earlier, designers made decisions about physical form and materials to govern the interaction with the designed ‘thing’. Now the designer must also script the thing’s interactive behavior. The simplest program relates inputs directly to outputs (”when this lid is opened, the lights go out”). The software itself is a more subtle model of the design in use.

Artists, hobbyists and DIY hackers built entirely new hardware tool kits and platforms to make it easier to build and program working prototypes of products with embedded electronics. Today the Arduino family of microcontroller boards, including the Lilypad, engineered for embedding in textiles. Hardware design environments such as Fritzing and a host of programming environments such as Pd and Funnel invite designers to play with and provide the ability to get your hands dirty with electronics and code. Such tool-kits and platforms are critical to moving tangible interaction design forward; we’ll see more of them emerge as these products and experiences become mainstream.

As a learning designer, I’m quite challenged to imagine a world where every object is capable of providing information about itself and that too in an interactive manner. This would change the way we design and deliver learning. We’ve always looked at learning to be separate from the objects/environment that it is about – we learn to use something. While we accept learning is enhanced by interaction, how will tangible interaction change things? What if every object came embedded with the ‘training’ required to use it, easily accessed through simple interaction with the object itself, perhaps with the object having a ‘learning mode’. As learning designers, we need to force ourselves out of imagining interaction as being human mediated or digital – there’s a new type of interaction that we’ll need to be leveraging soon – tangible interaction.