Please freeze the design!

How often have you worked on ID projects where the design is still not frozen (or per one of the final reviewers, the design seems ok; however, review from another reviewer is still awaited) and the management waves a green flag to the content development team? Trust me, I have, more often than not. It typically happens when an organization outsources its training needs to another organization that is good/professional at developing, designing, and delivering training.

Management at the training team side wants to optimize the time that team members are billing on the project and it also intends to impress the client by delivering development pieces ahead of the training timeline. On the other hand, client reviewers, whose key responsibilities are different than training development, park performing reviews for a later, rather relaxed time. Situation: Content team creates design that is ready for review; however, (full) review does not come through per the timeline. Implication: Management gives a go ahead for content development since the design timeline has passed. The development starts in full flow, unsure of the validity of the design on which it is to be based. Complication: Complete design review is received a couple of days, sometimes weeks (yes, that happens), later and it indicates some major changes to topical outline, objectives, and even learning strategy, of the training. Result: Rework. The development team gets defensive and feels demotivated. However, this is the situation (not the best one, agreed) wherein a training team can learn a lot about the client, their preferences, reasons for their preferences, and their thought process for selecting an approach over another, in addition to sharing their own reasons for designing the training approach as they did---many a times clients also learn a thing or two about training by interacting with the training development team. By being defensive, most of the teams lose on the opportunity to interact with client to understand their requirements at this stage. Often, the development team works towards merely fixing the review comments just for the sake of it. My suggestion: Utilize this scenario/time to (a) understand what the client review essentially shares---what is good/not so good about the design, what the client desires, why does the client need what it is asking it does---and, if need be, (b) negotiate---may be timelines, budget, resources, etc. (Given that the design review arrived later than the timeline, depending on how late it came through, it will have timeline/monetary implications.) And to avoid running into situations like these, have a good dialogue with client at the beginning of the project, emphasizing the importance of having one key work product frozen/signed off before working on the next, dependent work product(s); e.g., a frozen design before starting to work on training development; frozen development templates before beginning to script content in them, and so on. In addition, consider developing (if absolutely necessary) only the parts of training for which you are sure that the design will not change.

Rapid Prototyping in Instructional Design

The idea, meaning, and use of rapid prototyping differ across disciplines. This article discusses rapid prototyping in the field of instructional design.

Rapid Prototyping

Usually, instructional designing relies on following the linear ADDIE (analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation) model to develop an instruction or content. Rapid prototyping (RP) is an alternate, iterative design methodology to such a traditional, linear instructional design model. As the name suggests, it involves creating a prototype (working model of the final product); and just like any other prototype, it has the key features that get duplicated in the final (instructional) product.

RP is a way of designing content that involves creating a prototype, evaluating the prototype by seeking feedback from the stakeholders (learner, client, and the SME), implementing the feedback into the prototype, repeating this process of user evaluation and feedback implementation till the prototype evolves into an approved content by the stakeholders. This iterative design-evaluation cycle continues through the life of the project. Because of the repetitive, iterative process that RP follows, it is also called a spiral cycle or layered approach of instructional designing.

RP ensures developing effective instruction, especially in large projects, because of the stakeholder (student, client, and SME) involvement early at the design phase. Mistakes in the design are easier to fix at this stage than when the project is completely developed—it saves time, effort, and money to catch and fix the issues early.

Comparison

Traditional Instructional Design Model:

Step 1: Define concept (objectives, expectations, and audience) for the learning; Step 2: Define requirements of the learning; Step 3: Create a preliminary design; Step 4: Create the detailed design; Step 5: Develop the complete learning; Step 6: Implement or program the learning; Step 7: Test the learning for acceptance; Step 8: Correct the loopholes that got left out from Step 2.

In other words, the classic ADDIE model looks like:

Analysis -> Design -> Development -> Implementation -> Evaluation

[ADDIE follows a structured, linear, step-by-step, progressive approach through each of these five stages to come up with a particular content delivery or edition.]

RP Model:

Step 1: Define concept (objectives, expectations, and audience) for the learning; Step 2: Create a prototype; Step 3: Perform user evaluation and concept refinement; Step 4: Implement refined requirements; Step 5: Repeat Steps 3 and 4 in a continuous cycle.

In other words, the RP model looks like:

Information gathering -> Design Phase (iterative process: Design -> Prototype -> Review) -> Development Phase (iterative process: Develop -> Implement -> Evaluate)

[In a way, the design and development phases happen concurrently than sequentially in RP as compared to the traditional instructional design models. This makes the project cycle of RP shorter.]

Usage

You, as an instructional designer, can opt to use RP when you are struggling with time and budget for a learning project. Because of the stakeholder (learner, client, and SME) intervention at an earlier stage, mistakes are identified early; and therefore, the chances of rework at a later stage greatly reduce. The opposite often happens while following the linear, traditional models—the finished product often presents errors that need to be fixed—because these errors were not identified at an early stage, they replicate themselves all through the project subsections; and therefore, fixing them consumes a lot of time. In addition, in RP, the design and the development happen concurrently rather than sequentially. This translates to lesser time spent on the project, which also means you can complete the project on a tighter budget.

You can also use RP when you have two competing approaches of designing an instruction and you would like to get an idea about which approach would appeal and befit more to the learner.

Advantages

Getting feedback from the learners at an early stage: RP involves the learners early at the design phase. It is better to involve the learners to get their feedback than to believe that you can put yourself in learners’ shoes as much (and as well) as the learners themselves can. I believe that the self-critique of your work or instruction can never match to the feedback that you get from the learners. When you get the content evaluated by the learners and then implement their feedback, it improves your chances of delivering a more fit content for the learner. It makes you realize, at an earlier stage (design stage rather than the development stage), the mistakes or inefficiencies that might seep into the project. All this, saves time and increases effectiveness of an instruction.

Fine tuning yourself with changing client needs: Your client might have the most specific requirements and expectations when it first approaches you for developing content for a given audience. However, most often than not, client requirements and expectations change or evolve during the content development process. RP gives you an opportunity to assess whether the approach that you are following to design your content is in tandem with client’s requirements—fixed as well as changing requirements. (Every now and then, some client requirements or expectations are implicit. Because they are implicit, this information is only held by the client. When the client sees how the prototype is evolving, chances are that those requirements or expectations become explicit—for you as well as for the client.) A prototype that satisfies the client requirements is likely to result in a satisfactory finished (instructional) product. Get the client’s buy in and save expectation failures and later disappointments.

Accelerating the development process: Because RP seeks and incorporates the suggestions by the stakeholders (learner, client, and SME) early at the design phase, the development process gets quicker than it would have been if there were uncertainties about the stakeholders’ reactions to the design of the content. If content is developed with such uncertainties, the rework on the design and the developed content can be quite time and effort consuming. Introduce the stakeholders, catch the problems while they are relatively easy to fix, and reduce the time on content development.

Disadvantages

Approaching RP as trial and error: To some, following RP might appear as a trial and error method for getting a prototype approved by the client. While following RP, one needs to understand and constantly remind oneself that nothing can replace sound instructional strategy for a given learning situation and also that RP does not eliminate the need of an extensive analysis phase before heading for the design phase. So, RP is not a short cut to the instructional design and development process if you compromise on the sound instructional principles. Although using RP might give you a feeling that you can be less disciplined and repair the faulty designs by feedback, treating RP with this approach demeans the purpose and advantages of using RP—to create an effective instruction in lesser time.

Leading to frustration in developers: Because there are multiple iterations that happen in the design and developed content concurrently, some developers (content developers, graphic designers, and content technologists) might feel frustrated doing multiple revisions of the same content piece. Some might feel why leave a room for improvement and why not do everything in a perfect shape at the first go. However, that is neither the intent nor the approach that is followed for RP. Trying to achieve perfection the first time defeats the advantages of RP as well—to make design perfect, you will spend more time and effort; and also, you might try to fix the parameters in the prototype that need to be discussed with the stakeholders. So, to work on a RP project, it works well to have experience in RP or work with someone experienced in RP to understand where to draw the line of achieving perfection while developing the prototypes.

LIFTS Principle

It was only when I thought of writing about a simple set of principles called LIFTS, which I learned during the early days of my instructional design career, that I realized its nonexistence on the Internet. Just to confirm one of the aspects related to LIFTS, I thought of cross checking about it on the Web, and I was in for a surprise—there was not a single write-up about LIFTS on the Web. LIFTS is a simple set of rules that can be used for writing effectively for a given audience. It is an acronym that stands for Learner centric, Integrity, Flow, Transition, and Simplicity. This is what my grey cells recall. I would like to share whatever I can remember and I hope someone could correct me if I go wrong somewhere.

Let’s look at each of the elements of this principle or rule (I am not sure which categorization it fits into better) that can guide anyone to develop effective educational instructions for a specific audience or, in other words, learner.

L: Learner Centric

For any instruction to be effective (no matter at which level you are developing it: big, as in design phase of a learning project; or small, as in development phase of a learning project), it has to be learner centric. This principle affects multiple aspects of writing an instruction: what strategy you choose for designing the learning material (you would want to use different learning strategies for a drawing student vis-à-vis a busy, on-the-move technocrat); which examples or scenarios you select to teach the learner (they should be learner centric: the learner should be able to relate to them, they should be able to put themselves in the shoes of a person in the scenarios or examples that you develop for the learning); what kind of language you use to address the learner (I feel that addressing the learner as second person is effective while developing an educative instruction). Always consider the ultimate client for whom you develop the learning, the learner—everything else should revolve around this consideration.

I: Integrity

You cannot look London and talk Tokyo to the learner. All instructions that you include in learning should be integral to the overall goals of the learning. The objectives or goals should guide the assessments for the learning, and the assessments should guide the learning material. At all times, be relevant. You can teach a fashion student the impact of ineffective time management by taking an example based on an automobile company scenario; however, just think how relevant or related such content would it be vis-à-vis using a fashion company scenario to teach the same skill. Ensure that all learning instructions that you develop are directed to the learning goals and assisted by relevant examples.

F: Flow

The content of a learning should build logically as it progresses—from simple to complex, or from generic to specific, and not vice versa. This ensures that the learner is exposed to fundamentals before getting into the nuances of a subject—this is in sync with the natural and logical way of learning and developing schemas. While designing a learning, make sure that its topical outline reflects a seamless, progressive flow of subject knowhow. While developing a topic of a learning, make certain that all its subtopics follow a logical flow. Always arrange or organize your content to guarantee flow—it facilitates a smooth reading.

T: Transition

If Flow is macromanagement, Transition is micromanagement. Transition is how you move the learner from one topic or subtopic to the next one; how you relate the succeeding content to the preceding one; how you choose to tell the learner why a given content piece is important to be learned after a particular topic or subtopic. As a good practice, always include transitions for content chunks of all magnitudes such as paragraphs, subtopics, topics. Include a line or two sharing how a piece of content leads itself to the next piece of content, what is the importance of studying the forthcoming content, and so on. The idea is to interest the learner about what’s next, keep him or her aware of what to expect next, and let him or her know the reasons for the same.

S: Simplicity

Develop your instructions using simple language so that the learners can derive only one meaning out of it. The language should not be open to interpretations. Flowery language works well for fiction, not necessarily for imparting education and training. Use short, straightforward sentences; avoid convoluted structures in language.

Creative Writing

After writing a couple of articles with a technical bend, I thought writing on a topic that would involve lesser technicalities to it. I chose ‘Creative writing’ as it drew my attention a couple of months back and ever since this is the one non-technical article I wished to write on.

Often, instructional designing and content development jobs call for ‘creative writing’ as one of the skills. This, I think, is probably so because (a) creative writing can be a yardstick to identify a good writer (prerequisite for a sound content writer and instructional designer) and (b) a content writer is expected, many a times, to base the learning around a context, a theme, or a narrative---such part of learning can be effectively created if the content writer is a good raconteur. With this moderate understanding, I thought of delving more into the subject of ‘creative writing’ and share my improved understanding with you.

So, what is creative writing? It is any kind of writing (fiction, non-fiction, poetry, travel, music, and so on) that is not academic, professional, or journalistic in nature. It is the kind of writing that an author does to express thoughts, feelings, and imagination and not to merely represent facts and figures. Creative writing is the first step to improve the skill of writing---writing, which is the basic element of content development and instructional designing.

The major chunk of creative writing is about writing a story, a narrative. Creative writing is something that all fiction writers invariably do. In a typical piece of creative writing, there are some seven basic elements of narrative that often appear: plot, characters, dialogue, setting, point of view, theme, and style. Let’s learn a bit about them.

Elements of Creative Writing

Plot: It is the sequence of events that govern the direction that the piece of art (narrative) takes. Chances are that a good plot will be able to save not-so-good writing however vice versa is considerably tough---a poor plot cannot be camouflaged by a well-written narrative. Usually, a plot will unfold the events and turns of the story in a chronological manner; you can however use flashbacks as well to treat your narrative differently. The climax that yields an addressing (one that binds and resolves the different angles of the plot) end to a progressive narrative makes an interesting read.

Characters: These are the human and non-human entities that play different roles in the plot. Introducing the characters early in the narrative is better---the main character earlier than the other characters. Chances are that if your reader can identify with one or more characters in the plot, the reader gets more glued to the narrative. So, check your characters in a manner that your readers can identify with.

Dialogue: It includes the sentences and phrases that are used as a part of the conversation between the characters of the narrative. The more dialogues a character has, the more important the character becomes. So, give your lead characters dialogues in a manner that the reader spends more time hearing to those characters. The main character should be given more dialogues and to the rest, as the plot demands. This was about the quantity, now let’s understand the quality. Each character is identified by the kind of language (dialogue) that he or she uses and also when he or she chooses to use these dialogues. Therefore, the dialogues should convey the feel of the character to the reader. It is better that the author does not pen down the character as sketched in his or her mind---the dialogues and accompanying expressions written by the author should hint toward the character. The narrator should present rather than spoon feed the characters to the readers. The judgment about a character should be the prerogative of the reader.

Another very vital point to remember is that you (the writer) should use dialogues purposefully---either to build the characters or to move the plot ahead or both. Dialogues that do not have a purpose or would not make difference to the plot if taken out are better left out.

Setting: It is the era or time, place, and backdrop in which the narrative happens. The setting sets the context in which the plot runs. Also, the dialogues and sketch of characters are often influenced by it. For a basic narrative, usually there is one setting to the whole plot. In other narratives, however, there might be multiple settings and it is better that the narrator introduces every setting before the respective (sub)plot begins.

Point of view: This is how the narrator sees that characters. Now, with that said, the point of view can be of various types: (a) first person point of view allows the main character to be the narrator or a secondary character to be the narrator for the main character (In this case, the narrator gives intimacy to the story however this can be limiting for the reader because the reader will be able to view the character through the narrator’s eyes.); (b) third person point of view gives the allowance that the narrator be (i) objective (just tell the story as is without telling the emotions and feelings that characters experience---describe only the actions) or (ii) omniscient (tell the story with actions as well as the inner feelings and emotions of the characters ).

It is wise that narrator does not impose his or her take on the characters; however, he or she should state the facts that led him or her to take that view point. The judgments should not be passed from the narrator’s words; the readers should be given space to make their own judgments.

Theme: It is the meaning and flavor that your narrative carries. The events that happen in the narrative will add and build its theme. Theme cannot be conveyed by words alone in the narrative; it builds with different incidents that happen in the plot.

Style: It is how you use the language to express yourself. A consistent style, in a narrative, is always way more impressive than the idea to have different, fancy styles in one piece of literary art. It is good to have a good hold on English; however, it is better to use precise, specific, and short words to express rather than to use long, convoluted, poetic, and flamboyant language. Remember to move the story ahead using the language rather than have emphasis on language and leave the plot on the fate of words. The string that holds a good story is the plot; and the style ensures that the string looks beautiful.

Tips for Creative Writing

• Give your readers at least one character they can identify with. Readers are quick and glad to recognize a character that they can identify with: themselves, a relative, a friend, or a neighbor, and so on. It adds to the zest of reading.
  
  
• Start as close to the beginning as possible. There is nothing more exciting than to read a piece that is fast moving and lets its readers know that the end is about to approach. If your readers experience the adrenaline rush by the fast paced treatment of your narrative, consider your story an interesting read.
  
  
• Use your sentences wisely to communicate more information with fewer words. Your sentences should yield information about characters and move the story forward in a word-efficient manner. Remove redundancy and make your story a crisp read.
  
  
• Try drawing most of your characters from the real life---from your family, friends, relatives, neighbors, your grocery store person, your librarian, your professor, your manager, your colleague, your subordinate. Take ideas from their lives, actions, and behavior to give your characters different dimensions.
  
  
• Do not spare your characters. Put your characters in difficult and unusual circumstances, no matter how ideal or nice they are. Give every character a meaning. Remember that your readers will remember the characters who were in difficult situations and went through making tough choices.
  
  
• Be alert. Be open to the ideas that run through your mind while you hear people talking in train, bus, parties, and other events.
  
  
• Identify your writing time. Get to know the time when you are at your creative best---some people write the best in the morning, while some prefer the night time. Once you know the time you give your best to writing, ensure that you write daily; it does not matter if it is only one small paragraph.
  
  
• Be yourself. Write the way you feel like not the way you think you should. Write without imposing any style on your individual style.
  
  
• Be a devil’s advocate. Do see your narrative from a non-author view point. Wear a critic’s hat after writing the first draft and correct all the loopholes in the story. Looking from a different view point certainly helps---mistakes that you do not see in your baby might become evident from someone else’s eyes. If you fail to do that, show your narrative to a friend or a colleague who you know will read the story from a different/second pair of eyes.
  
  
• Do it now. If you feel you can write a good story and wait for that opportune moment when your creative juices will flow, trust me that day will be as distant as it is today. The right time to start writing is now. Start writing and continue it. After some time of writing, you might feel that you need a break and you might just take it; however, that break might just keep extending. To avoid falling in the dark pit of non-return to writing, think of writing as a job and continue writing even on days you feel you cannot write. A trash-like written paper can be improved however an empty paper cannot be filled for a time gone by.
  
  

Note: Please note that I have used a lot of ‘should’s in the article however one thing to remember is that there are no perfect rules of writing; whatever works, simply works. Following rules (mostly) is a safe bet; however, you (a creative writer) should never be shy of following the gut feeling, even if it asks to violate the rules.

Happy Writing!!!

Accessibility: Fancy Philanthropic Effort or More?

Accessibility refers to making the products and services accessible to all, including people with disabilities (PwD) and a lot has been talked about it as a social, philanthropic effort, almost so much so that it sounds like a corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative. Do u really think that big companies, such as IBM, Microsoft, and Cisco, are continuously improving their products, services, and processes w.r.t. accessibility to accommodate only a social cause? Well, I do not think so. Addressing social needs might be one reason…one small reason I would say, however, there is more to such an initiative.

Big companies are claiming to make the outputs of their businesses, such as products (phones, laptops, computerized kiosks), documentation, and services (learning solutions, Web sites), accessible or available almost equally to all, be it a professional, or an older person, or a PwD. And, the reason given for such a move, most of the times, is to provide equal opportunities to all. That, in my opinion, is only partly true.

It Means Business

An important reason for implementing accessibility is the big money involved. As far as the statistics goes, 6% of world population is suffering from disabilities, and around 19% of the U.S. population contributes to this number. Now, these people are customers with special needs who need accessible products and services to make the transactions that other people make. Also, PwD are all the more dependent on Internet and technologically advanced solutions to make their day-to-day operations a bit smoother. Technology can assist them, like other non-disabled people, right from paying off their bills sitting at home to controlling their businesses from a location of their choice. However, PwD need these services more and the reason is obvious. Therefore, if companies are implementing accessibility in their products and services, they are very well capturing a new customer set (PwD) for their products that others did not even consider.

In addition to the customers that companies can capture and satisfy with their accessible solutions, companies can also hire and retain employees who are good at work however did not get hired because the company lacked accessible products and services. Apart from PwD, some people face disabilities because of age—many old people develop certain disabilities with age and if the companies do not retain them as employees just because of their recently acquired disability, companies lose on the expertise that these people have earned through their experience. And this population of aged people is above and beyond the 6% (PwD, worldwide) and 19% (PwD, U.S.) statistics.

Now, think of the revenue that a company can earn by making new customers, catering to them, and retaining diverse employees. And then, philanthropy just becomes one of the peripheral advantages that emerge out of this business need called accessibility.

So, when IBM introduces shortcuts/special buttons on this Think Pad (for people with locomotor disability), or Cisco launches accessible phones (that converts speech to text) for hearing-impaired people, or Microsoft releases Windows Speech Recognition in its Windows Vista (to enable people with locomotor disability to interact with heir PCs by their voice), I think there is more than a social cause to it---it all translates to wider customer base and therefore more business.

Competition Demands It

Another important reason of implementing accessibility is that in these times of severe competition, you cannot and rather would not like to be left behind. All big organizations are involved in addressing needs of PwD, be it visual, auditory, speech, locomotor, neurological, or cognitive disabilities. IBM and Microsoft are actively involved in implementing accessibility in their products since early 1980s. And now Cisco is also joining the bandwagon by having an Accessibility Unit for the organization that takes care of accessibility needs for the organization on whole. When the top-notch players are competing in providing accessible solutions, other companies are bound to follow the suit.

Clients Demand It

Many companies, such as Cisco, have U.S. federal government and other U.S. state governments, as their clients. For these companies, with such clients, it becomes a stated requirement to make their deliverables accessible because they need to comply with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act (in U.S.). This act requires all products and services to be accessible to all in the public. With more states and clients asking for accessible solutions, be it in learning or product domain or otherwise, the demand of accessible solutions will rise and an organization can only be ignorant to not proactively learn more about it.

Pleasing Customer

Making the products and services accessible to PwD makes things easier for the other lot too, i.e., people who do not have disabilities. If an organization like Microsoft allows the flexibility to use the IE7 browser in a way that best suits customer’s needs and preferences, it benefits the PwD and others alike. It becomes a comfort for all to be able to customize text, style it, and color it; use keyboard shortcuts; use the zoom in and zoom out functionality for the Web content, and so on. This makes a customer of your product happy and the more customers you please; the more you make your business grow. After all, customer is God.

Accessibility has already gained a lot of momentum within big companies and the medium sized companies as well are catching up with it. The management in the latter should consider proposing accessibility as a part of the solutioning for the client. Because if your product is good and the client intends to use it for long, it might not be very far that the client comes back to you saying he wants to make it accessible and then turning back the wheel would be a tedious process. So, treating accessibility as a solution that a business can offer to make better products and services for PwD and otherwise is a wise thing to do---a wiser business proposal than a philanthropic effort.

Instructional Design – What Is It?

Instructional design is all about delivering information to a known learner in the most effective manner. It is about managing learning by creating effective instructions. Instructional designing is a field that leverages the human art of teaching/facilitating learning by studying the difference between the current (present) and ultimate (desired) skill/knowledge set of a learner. It revolves around bridging the difference between the two. Simple as it might sound and so it is; however, to say this, you need to understand it. As I understand it, instructional deigning is keeping yourself in the shoe of a learner and (1) imagining how you would learn best---by what means, by which content, by which delivery medium, and so on, and (2) developing and delivering content that fulfils that imagination.

Like any other field of science, instructional design owes its present state of understanding to various theories, models, and scientists (mostly psychologists and behaviorists). Apart from talking about the most significant contributions that all of them have made to instructional designing, this blog will present and discuss the new and emerging changes in this field.