Instructional Design and eAuthoring Week 7 – 10 December 2013

Today Damien broke his own rules and gave us handouts of the powerpoint slide, but he did inform us there was more information on his than on the handout. He explained that he has 10 slides explaining certain aspects on screen they would be a list of 10 on one slide in the handouts.

I was interested to hear a usefule fact that 70% of problems were people related, 20% process related and only 10% technology related. It interested me because no matter what goes wrong it is always the computer’s fault straight away. I was reminded of the Little Briton sketches of ‘the computer says no‘.

The importance of usability was discussed quoting Jakob Nielsen. The resource being designed must be simple to use and get the correct information across. The F shaped reading pattern was mentioned again but I am still of the opinion that in this age of blogging right hand tool bars are as effective as left hand tool bars. This generation of learners are digital natives, that is to say they have grown up with digital technology and it is part of everyday life.

I was introduced to Nielsen’s Heuristics, a step by step process to ensure the design is solid. It give a 10 step approach that makes you think about the design process, slows down the thought process and helps to ensure no parts are overlooked, it is a good tool. Other similar tools mentioned included seven principles of universal design, 8 golden rules of interface design, 13 principles of design, six thinking hats and advised to look up Dieter Rams principles of design.

Evaluation of elearning module was discussed with tools such as MERLOT and LORI being hight lighted.