It is well-known that training programs delivered in the native languages of learners are more effective. People are emotionally connected to their mother tongue and can comprehend the learning content, easily and effectively. With increasing number of multinational companies (MNCs) using eLearning to train their global workforce, the demand for high quality online course translations is on the rise. Most MNCs are seeking to outsource their eLearning translation projects to vendors in countries such as India, to save time and money and focus on their core business activities. But, how can you choose the right organization to translate your online course? Well, you need to ask 6 questions before inking a deal with an eLearning translation services provider. Hope you find this post useful. Do share your views. Related Posts5 Things to Avoid While Choosing E-learning Translation Vendor 4 Steps That Simplifies E-learning Translation and Localization Process - An Infographic5 Tips to Improve The Quality of E-learning Translation - An Infographic

So, you’re in and getting started with eLearning. Now that you’re developing courses for your organization, your focus should be on standards of eLearning. A standard is a frame of reference which qualifies what is good and what is not. The standards of eLearning help you improve the quality of learning delivered through online courses and track and report learners’ performance. The ASTD has come up with certain standards of eLearning courseware development and categorized them into 4 groups, and one of them is about compatibility. The compatibility standards address the relationship between the courseware, operating system and related applications. There are four simple but important standards under this group, and let us see what they are in the info-graphic below. Hope you find this post interesting. To learn more about what makes a great course, download the complete eBook. Related Posts4 Effective Ways of Presenting Scenarios in E-learning CoursesWant to Gain Expertise in Instructional Design? 4 Things You Need to Learn - An InfographicPersonality Types of Learners and their Effect on Learning

We have discussed the importance of instructional design strategy, in online course design, in my previous blog. In this blog, we will be discussing about visual design strategy for e-learning. Visual design is another important component that we need to decide on, as part of the "Design Approach". The main objective of an e-learning course is to create a strong impact that facilitates learning. This objective can be achieved by using visuals effectively. In e-learning, visuals can be in the form of illustrations, diagrams, charts, graphs, drawings, photographs, graphics etc. Paul Martin Lester, a professor of visual communication says: "Something is happening. We are becoming a visually mediated society. For many, understanding of the world is being accomplished, not through words, but by reading images." This is something that, most of us are attracted towards visuals than the written word. Aren’t we? Coming to e-learning, both under-use and over-use of visuals result in poor delivery of learning and compromise the efficacy of the course. One should always remember that not all graphics are equally effective; some visuals can actually depress the learning. The best way to overcome this problem is to combine both visual and non-visual content in a judicious way. Let us now see how visuals facilitate a positive impact on the learner. Visualization helps in organization and construction of concepts Visualization can be used to: Compare two items, as the pictures speak for themselves Facilitate multi-dimensional display of information. When there are many factors that need to be assimilated, a visual display helps more than text/tables Visualization helps create mind maps, as learners proceed along the course For instance, let us now see how visualizing content can impact the efficacy of the course on safe driving practices. Option 1: Option 2: From the given example, I’m sure that many of you will choose option 2 over option 1 as it is clearer in terms of delivering the key message and creates a lasting impression in our minds. Studies show that people remember 10% of what they hear, 20% of what they read, 80% of what they see and do. Human brain interprets images faster than words. So, the use of visuals helps us recall the content better.  So, we see that visualization plays a key role in learner engagement by conveying the key message of the course effectively. Hope you find this blog informative. Do share your views. Related PostsBest Practices of Visualization for an E-learning CourseBest Practices of Visualization for an E-learning courseImportance of Visual Communication in Elearning

It is common knowledge that online training is self-paced and dropout rates are high. Therefore, the greatest challenge before an instructional designer is to develop a learner-centric e-learning course that keeps learners engaged throughout. However, every organization has its own instructional design process for developing e-learning courses. A good instructional design process is one that ‘smoothens’ the overall development of the e-learning course. Here is an info-graphic which lists 6 phases of an effective instructional design process. Hope you liked this post. Do share your views. Related Posts4 Effective Ways of Presenting Scenarios in E-learning CoursesRole of an Instructional Designer in E-learning Course Development - An Infographic4 Tips to Design Effective Navigation for Your E-learning Course - An Infographic

Last evening, I had to cook dinner for my guests. I had some of the ingredients in the fridge, some in the shelf, some were in the bag that I just bought from the market, and the vessels were in different sections of the vessel rack. While cooking the first dish, I started running around for ingredients every time I needed one. I thought I will not be able to complete cooking before my guests arrived. Before cooking the second dish, I gathered all the necessary ingredients at one place. After completing, I noticed that the process for cooking the second dish went quite smooth and took less time than the first. Similarly, while developing an online course using a rapid authoring tool like Articulate Storyline, e-learning developers cannot find all the options or features at one place. Every option is put under a different category or tab. For example, the option to Insert Image is under the Insert tab; the option to edit the Slide Master is under the View tab; and the option to edit the slide size (Story Size) is under the Design tab. Sometimes, we may feel frustrated to click on various tabs to access different options. We may want them to be at one place for quicker access to reduce development time. Articulate Storyline provides you with one such option called Quick Access Toolbar at the top left corner of its interface. It is similar to the quick access toolbar in Microsoft Word or PowerPoint. You can use this Quick Access Toolbar to display the necessary options for easy and quick access. By default, it consists of Save, Undo, and Redo options; and, with the arrow adjacent to these options, you can easily remove them from the Quick Access Toolbar by unchecking them. But, to add or remove other options, you need to use a different method. Today, in this blog, let us know how to add options to the Quick Access Toolbar and remove them. For instance, let us see how to add the Insert Picture option to the Quick Access Toolbar. Adding Options to the Quick Access Toolbar  Step 01: Click Insert tab. Step 02: Right-click on the option you would like to add to the Quick Access Toolbar. In this case, it is the Insert Picture option. Step 03: Select Add to Quick Access Toolbar from the list that appears when you right click on the option. You can see that a small picture icon is added to the Quick Access Toolbar. Similarly, you can add as many options as you want to the Quick Access Toolbar such as Align, Slide Master, Insert shapes, captions, characters etc. Now, let us know how to remove the added options. Removing options from the Quick Access Toolbar Step01: Right-click on the option/icon you want to remove from the Quick Access Toolbar. Step02: Select Remove from Quick Access Toolbar from the list that appears when you right click on the icon. You can see that the icon is removed from the Quick Access Toolbar. That’s it! This how we can add the required options to the Quick Access Toolbar and remove them when not necessary. So, what are you waiting for? Start adding the options that you access often to the Quick Access Toolbar and save your development time. Hope you find this tip helpful. Please share your thoughts through your valuable comments. Related PostsRapid E-learning through Storyline Tool: 5 Infographics Sharing Key FeaturesHow to Combine Your Adobe Captivate Projects Into Single Course?4 Tips for Developing E-learning Course Using Rapid Authoring Tools

Recently, I was working on a software training project. The objective of the training was to enable users of the software to manage fuel levels of the assets in an effective way. The software is used by many users such as operations manager, equipment manager, administrator etc. Often, simulation-based strategies are used to deliver software training. But, in many cases, learners find simulations boring. But, there are certain situations where you need to use other approaches along with simulations. So, what are those approaches which make your software training courses engaging? In this post, I will share how you can use different approaches along with simulations to make the course engaging. The client had a requirement that the eLearning module shouldn’t exceed 5 minutes. The ‘raw material’ had content for different users of the software making it huge. Some of the content was common to all users, while some was role specific. Here, the approach was that we will have a separate overview module that is common to all users, which will be around 3 minutes. And, then we have small modules specific to each user/ role, which will not exceed 5 minutes. For the common module, we set the stage by giving an overview of the tool. We then introduced the roles and responsibilities of the users and what aspects the software can track. To enhance the course visually, we used characters for each role. Here, the user can select his role and learn more about his responsibilities, instead of viewing the responsibilities of all users. Once the learner knows his role, he is given a set of tasks. Here, a list of tasks specific to the user appears from which he can make his selection. Each task is treated as an eLearning module which is around 5 minutes. The module begins with a task. To complete this task, a demo (simulation steps) on how to do a task is shown. Here, an avatar of a senior manager is used to guide the learners. The manager takes the learners through the simulation steps which appear as callouts in an animation. After this, the learner is given an opportunity practice the steps. Some hints are provided to perform these steps. This way, he can learn easily apply the learning in his real life. Apart from this, to reinforce the learning and complete the learning cycle, assessments with adequate feedback are provided at the end of each module. Coming to the development of the course, we used Captivate 8 as it can be used to create responsive online courses which can be accessed on all devices. To conclude, though we use simulations for software training, it can still be made engaging by using different approaches. Related PostsSoftware Product Simulation - Captivate or Flash?Benefits of Using Simulations in Software Applications TrainingSAP Implementation - Are Software Simulations Enough to Train your Employees?

Businesses that expanded their translation budgets were 1.5 times more likely to report an increase in total revenue than their Fortune 500 peers (Common Sense Advisory, 2011). The last two decades have witnessed revolutionary developments in the L&D world. As companies are expanding their operations overseas, the need to impart effective training to multilingual workforces is ever increasing. While writing this narration script to the translation vendor for course translation, an instructional designer may overlook some aspects which may be really important. Here is an info-graphic which shares 5 aspects to be considered while translating online course narration scripts. Hope you liked this post. Do share your views. Related Posts4 Steps That Simplifies E-learning Translation and Localization Process - An Infographic5 Tips to Improve The Quality of E-learning Translation - An Infographic5 Proven Tips for Better E-learning Translations - An Infographic

Progress bars in e-learning courses are used to show the learner how much of the course he has completed.. Articulate Storyline, by default, doesn’t have an option to add progress bars. However, we have progress bars for individual slides. We can add a progress bar for an entire course in Articulate Storyline either by placing objects within the GUI (which consumes more time) or developing a HTML progress bar and inserting it as a Web Object into the course. Given below are the steps to add a customized progress bar in quick time to your online courses. Step 1: Develop a HTML page with <Progress> tag and format it as you want. Refer the screenshot below with 30% progress. Note: Make sure to save the HTML file as index.html. Remember that we can reuse the same file throughout the course by just modifying a number in the code. Step 2: Now, in the Insert tab of Storyline, select the Web Object option to insert a HTML page into Storyline. Note: If you want to insert the progress bar for all slides, then you must create multiple folders and place each HTML file with different ‘progress’ values in a separate folder. This is important because a WebObject inserts index.html file directly into the course from the path given. We can’t place multiple files with name index.html in same folder. Hence save all HTML files with the same name but in different folders. The screenshot below gives you a good idea. Step 3: In the window opened, paste the location of the HTML file, or browse for its location by clicking the folder icon as shown below. Step 4: Adjust the size and position of the Web Object on the screen. You can even place a portion of the Web Object off the stage. However, the output remains the same. Shown below are the references. Step 5: After inserting Web Objects throughout the course, publish the course and check the output. In this way, we can add customized progress bars to online courses. The main advantage of using Web Objects is that we can customize the progress bar to a great extent with simple modifications to the code. You can even use images to make the course visually appealing. Refer the screenshots below. However, these progress bars are just Read-Only (learners cannot move or drag) and can be used to enhance the look and feel of online courses. Hope this helps you. Please do share your views on this post. Related PostsHow to Combine Your Adobe Captivate Projects Into Single Course?Rapid E-learning through Storyline Tool: 5 Infographics Sharing Key Features4 Things About Articulate Storyline You May Not Know

Every year, millions of employees get injured or lose their lives due to accidents that occur at workplace. These accidents also lead to huge loss for the companies in the form of penalties. Workplace disasters usually take place due to lack of knowledge of safety processes and precautions. So, the solution is to make the employees aware of the risks. But, as safety training is mandatory, and the information that goes into safety training is basic and routine, it is essential to think of delivering safety concepts in an interesting manner. In this post, I will discuss a few topics on employee workplace safety and what we have done to make those courses engrossing. Slip, trip and fall injuries We usually think that injuries caused by slipping, tripping and falling are minor, which is not true. In certain cases, these accidents can affect people very badly for the rest of their lives. And, major injuries such as broken bones and spine and back injuries lead to medical expenses and make people unfit to work. So, if you are into manufacturing, then training your people on these accidents is a must. Realizing this, one of our clients asked us to create a course on slip, trip and fall injuries. We have used large, high resolution images throughout the course to give a rich look and feel to the course. We created scenarios to show the accidents that can take place and present the best practices. We used interactivities such as ‘click on tabs’ and images to explain the safety practices. Ergonomics According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 33% of workplace disorders/injuries reported are caused due to musculoskeletal disorders, and they cost around $2.02 billion to companies every year in terms of compensation. Travel safety and safe driving Due to globalization and business expansion, employees often need to travel. And, there are chances of personnel getting injured in travel-related accidents. Motor vehicle accidents could be fatal and can cost you heavily. A defensive driver safety program can help you in minimizing the risks, and thereby, keep your people safe on the road. It can actually be a refresher training program which can develop a deeper understanding. We developed travel safety courses to a few of our clients with main emphasis on practical exercises. So, we used an avatar (named Surakshaveer), videos and other click-on interactivities to make the courses enriching and help employees remember the essential points for a long time. Employee training and employee participation can greatly reduce safety-related threats or accidents. These were some of the courses that we have designed. I will share some more with you, in my next blog. Stay tuned to the 2nd post. How do you impart effective safety training in your organization? We’d love to know. Related PostsAccident Prevention Training Through E-learningRole of Safety Training in Reducing Workplace InjuriesTips for Creating an Ideal Safety Training Plan

Many a time, we are asked to develop courses on subjects that are mundane and wordy, leading to creation of courses that are uninteresting and successfully manage to kill learner interest. As much as we would like to blame the content, as designers, it’s our job to create magic even with the most boring subjects at hand. Here are a few tips that I have learned while creating e-learning courses. Tip # 1 Gamify to Create Fun We all love to play video games! Gaming is a powerful medium to instruct. You can use this approach for an entire course. For instance, you can have your learning objectives as a task or a mission that is to be accomplished, and each module can be treated as the next or new level of the game. The most innovative part about gaming is that your assessments can be turned into challenges such as board games and puzzles. With the help of gamification, you can turn subjects such as IT security, performance appraisals and food safety into fun to learn e-learning courses. Check out a few amazing game based courses we can create for you. Tip # 2 Use Decision Making Scenarios  The key to any good online course is making your learner think, and what better way can there be than creating scenarios that leave the decision in your learners’ hands. Decision making scenarios are like ‘what’s next’ scenarios. For example, you’re creating a course on how to ace a sale, and your target learners are new or junior sales representatives. The ideal way here is to create a scenario between the customer and the sales representative, where the customer asks questions and the response of the sales representative is decided by your learner! This practical approach helps in two ways. Firstly, it represents how a real life sales situation is like. Secondly, it has great recall and on the job application. Here is a decision making scenario that you can use to make learning more fun. Tip # 3 Do Away With Jargon  Most of the time you are more likely to receive subjects that are technical and hard to explain. In such instances, we move away from the conversational tone to a technical and business-like tone. While writing, you need to write as a consultant or an equal; never opt to write in an authoritative manner. You need to be conversational, yet professional at the same time. Let’s see how conversational writing simplifies learning. Authoritative: This course ‘Panic Disorder’ gives an overview of the ‘the symptoms and treatment’ for panic disorder, and demonstrates how to cope with this disorder.  Conversational: Hi there! I am John and I will guide you through this course ‘Panic Disorder’ that highlights the symptoms and treatment for panic disorder. I will also take you through how you can cope with this disorder. Let’s get started with what panic disorder is. Tip # 4 More Visuals, Less Text Let your visuals do all the talking. Making the learner read every line results in heavy cognitive load. Presenting information in visual chunks helps explain concepts and ideas faster and in a more systematic way. Processes, procedures, concepts, products, you name it and it can be presented with a high visual impact with the help of info-graphics. Have a look at how the food production chain is presented in a visual manner for better understanding. Hope you find these tips useful. How do you design e-learning courses? We’d love to know. Related Posts4 Effective Ways of Presenting Scenarios in E-learning CoursesGuidelines for Content Chunking to Design Effective Online CoursesVarious Ways of Using Videos in E-learning Courses