Do you ever feel like the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland, shouting, "I’m late! I’m late! For a very important date!" as you struggle to meet deadlines? Sometimes it can be hard to focus when you’re working on multiple projects—or when you’re actually a rabbit in a tuxedo jacket. Our developers and designers here at Trivantis are pros at getting stuff done (just take a look at our service pack and updates page), so I asked them to share their secrets. Turns out, our Trivantis pros have too many productivity secrets to fit into one blog post, so today is just Part 1: General Work Productivity. Later, I’ll be revealing all their best Lectora® shortcuts and productivity secrets!    The Trusted Trio -Laura Silver, Director of Product Management "Use the ‘Trusted Trio’ three-folder system to manage the constant influx of email. All of my email is either Archived or moved to a Follow Up or Hold folder (or inbox using labels if you’re using Gmail)." Check out the details of this life-saving system on Lifehacker. And please excuse me while I go reorganize my inbox. I’d never heard of this until Laura told me about it, and I’m excited to try it out. Tweet at us @Lectora or comment on this blog if you try out the Trusted Trio system. Ignore Everyone -John Blackmon, Chief Technology Officer "As ironic as this may be, my best productivity secret is to take a day off from emails and phone calls. When I have serious work, it requires serious concentration. I turn off the phone and don’t open my email. You would be amazed what can get done with singular focus." Okay, John didn’t actually say to ignore everyone, but he did ignore my email all day. I’m going to interpret that to mean the next update to Lectora will be extra amazing. "Title to Title Copy" Joe Wieloch, Director of Development - Lectora Online "Not everyone knows you can bring up two different titles in Lectora Online! This is a great way to be able to get existing course content and bring it into a course you are developing. From the dashboard open the second title, copy something, and you will be able to paste it into the other title you are working on." Tricky, tricky, right? If you have a main intro section that needs to be in every course, this is a great way to avoid re-creating it every time! One and Done -Wendy Miller, Lead Content Developer "If you use Photoshop to create graphics for your Lectora titles, my tip is to cram as much of the title graphics as you can stand into a single Photoshop file with the layers organized into clearly-named groups and subgroups, much like the Title Explorer in Lectora. I used to create one Photoshop file per page of my title, but found that the ‘cram’ method saves me a lot of time in the end, even though opening and saving the files is slower. Sub-tip: If it’s an option for you, get the fastest machine you can and max out the RAM!" I foresee a lot of purchasing departments getting computer upgrade requests in the near future… Work from Home -Daryl Fleary, Product Manager Daryl tried to get away with just sending the copy and paste shortcuts (Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V) as his productivity tip. I made him give me another, and he very succinctly replied "work from home!" This might be my favorite tip, because when I work from home, I have a great free copy editor: What’s your best productivity secret for focusing in the office? Share yours in the comments and stay tuned for Part 2: Lectora Productivity Tips! The post Productivity Secrets from the Trivantis Pros: Pt.1 appeared first on .

When you are building an eLearning course, you will want to ensure that all learners—including those with visual impairments—are able to take your course. In many cases, a learner is using a screen reader software like JAWS, so in order to develop an accessible Web eLearning course, the order of the objects placed on a web page needs to be read in a logical order by the screen reader software. When we say a "logical order," it normally means top down, left to right, just as information would be presented to a person with full visual capabilities. The way that this is accomplished, so that a screen reader can read the web page in this logical order, is for the html objects (text, images, etc.) to be placed in an html document in the actual logical order that you would like them read by the software. Since we are using Lectora®, to design our eLearning courses and generate the html pages when we publish, we must be aware of how Lectora works, in order for the html pages to place our object in the actual logical order needed for screen reader software. Figure 1 - Title Explorer tab view of the title Figure 1 shows a picture of a typical Title Explorer tab view in Lectora, after generating a new course from a template. It has graphics and buttons along with the Course Title and the Page Title, at the title level. Then, there are 3 Chapters, and each Chapter has 3 pages in it. Finally, there is a Test at the end of the course. The way that the inheritance is set up on this course, all of the objects at the title level are inherited by all of the Chapters and Pages. For the test, none of the title level objects are inherited. So, if we were to publish this course to HTML the way that is set up now, it will publish individual html pages for each page in all of the Chapters, and for each page in the test. For the pages in the Chapters, it will place the objects at the title level FIRST on the html page in the order that they are defined in the Title Explorer. Since the Exit button comes before the Help button in the Title Explorer, it will be placed on the html page first, followed by the Help button. When this is read by a screen reader, it will read the Exit button first, followed by the Help Button. Now, after the title objects are added to the html page, then all other objects are added to the html page following inheritance order in Lectora. So, if there were objects at the Chapter level, this would be added next to the html page, in Title Explorer order. Then, any objects at the Page level would be added next to the html page, again, in Title Explorer order. If you have objects that you are not inheriting from a higher level, then they are not added to the html on a web page. So, for the test web pages, since the title objects are not inherited by the Test Chapter, they are not added to the html. The objects for the test web page are added to the html starting at the Test Chapter level, in Title Explorer order, followed by any objects on the test pages, again, in Title Explorer order. Well, that sounds easy enough, right? However, there are a couple of things that you need to be aware of and, of course, there are always exceptions to the rule. First, when you are developing in Lectora, it is very easy to move objects around visually on the pages.  Then, when the html is published and you look at the web pages visually, everything looks fine. But let a screen reader read the web page, and things are not being read in order that you would expect. That is because the way that the objects are placed on the screen to achieve a top down, left to right order visually does not match the same top down, left to right order in the Title Explorer order in Lectora, which we just discussed, for the screen reader to read the objects in the right order. So, when you are moving around objects visually on your web pages in Lectora, ensure that the order that you would like the screen reader to read your web pages is also maintained as well, by checking the order of the objects in the Title Explorer, and reordering the objects in the Title Explorer as necessary. Second, let’s discuss images and accessibility for a minute. Figure 2 shows a picture of the Logo Placeholder image Properties on the Ribbon view. Figure 2 - Logo Placeholder image Properties on the Ribbon view, showing the Empty ALT Tag checked ON For the Logo Placeholder image, we have a property called Empty ALT Tag, which is checked ON. What does this mean? Well, for images, when an image is defined in an html web page, there is an attribute that can be set with the image called the ALT tag. It allows a description to be added with the image of what the image is showing. So, in the world of accessibility and screen reader software, a screen reader cannot tell what an image looks like. However, it can read the ALT tag.  If you have nothing in the ALT tag for an image, hence, an EMPTY ALT TAG, then the screen has nothing to read and will just skip over the image, as if the image was not even there (though, visually, we can see that it is). So, when do you set the EMPTY ALT Tag? As a rule of thumb with accessibility, if the image conveys something that is important to the understanding of the web page or your course, then, we would not want to set the Empty ALT Tag. If the image has no importance to the understanding of the web page, then, we usually set the Empty ALT Tag ON. Images that we would leave Empty ALT Tag ON would include background images, border and line images, etc. If you have the Empty ALT Tag checked OFF, then, the ALT tag placed into the html web page is from the Name field on the Properties in the Ribbon view. You should always use a Name that describes the image well. For example, if the image was a boy licking an ice cream cone, then that is what we would use in the Name field to describe the image ("Boy licking an ice cream cone"). It is considered bad form to describe an image using the words "Image" or "Picture," so you would not describe the image as "Picture of a boy licking an ice cream cone." The screen reader software will indicate to you anyways that it is reading a graphic image when it finds one with its ALT tag set with a description. Now, if you are listening to a web page with your screen reader and you are not hearing the screen reader find or describe an image (even though you can see the image visually) and it was your intent to have the screen reader read the image, then, the first thing we would check is the Empty ALT Tag and see if it is checked ON. If it is, uncheck it and publish your title again to HTML.  Now, for the exceptions to the ordering rules. In Figure 2 there is also another Property for the Logo Placeholder image called Always On Top. If this property is checked ON, it will no longer place the object in logical order on the html page but will add it as one of the last items on the html page after all the others. So, why is this property here? Using Always On Top is an easy way to do layering, especially with images, to get one object to be placed on top of another object, so that visually, the layering looks the way you intended it to look. However, with accessibility and screen readers, this can have disastrous results, so, as a rule of thumb, we never use Always On Top checked ON for accessible titles. There is always another way to do the same thing as Always On Top. For example, with images, if you want one image on top of another image, then, just put the image that is supposed to be on top AFTER the other image in the Title Explorer, and you will have achieved the same results. There is one exception where it is ok to use Always On Top with accessible courses (an exception to the exception). Always On Top can be checked ON IF the object is an image AND Empty ALT Tag is also checked ON.  If you remember from previous, if the Empty ALT Tag is checked ON, the screen will not read the image anyways, so, it does not matter whether Always On Top is checked ON in this particular case. The other exception to the ordering rule is when you have set an action group so that the Set Reading Order to Last is checked ON, as in Figure 3 of the Properties of the Next Button Action Group. Figure 3 - Properties of an Action Group in Ribbon View, showing the Set Reading Order to Last property checked ON Set Reading Order to Last is an Accessibility property for an Action Group that will ONLY been available IF you set the title to Use Web Accessibility Settings, as in Figure 4 in the Title Options of the title. Figure 4 - Title Options showing the Use Web Accessibility Settings checkbox checked ON Inside of the Next Button Action Group in the sample title, we have one object, which is, the Next button. Why would you want to do this? Well, when a visual person takes an eLearning course, he or she will read the content on a particular web page, listen to audio, watch a video, play a game, etc. and then they will click the Next button to go to the next page. A screen reader user wants to do exactly the same thing, which is, read the content and go to the next page. However, they are using screen reader software. The easiest way for a screen reader user to do this is to have everything in order on the html page, first the content of the web page and then the Next button. However, most Next buttons are placed in the title at the Title level, BEFORE the content begins. So, if you remember from before, the objects are placed on the html page at the title level first before the content on a page. So, when the html is generated by Lectora, the order will be reverse from what we want, with the Next button read first by the screen reader and then the content of the web page. Before Lectora had this Set Reading Order to Last option, we would have had to add a Next button to EVERY page in a title after the web page content to achieve the order we wanted. With the Set Reading Order to Last option, we can force anything in this action group to come after the web page content. So, as a rule of thumb, we always create a Next Button Action Group at the title level, place a Next button inside of the Next Button Action Group and turn ON the checkbox for Set Reading Order for Last for the action group. Subscribe to the Everything eLearning Blog for more Lectora how-to tutorials and tips on accessibility. Joe Payne is a Web Application Architect who has been developing software in Microsoft development environments for almost 25 years. He has worked in state government for 14 years developing web solutions and has obtained a vast knowledge in Accessibility programming with Section 508 and WCAG 2.0 standards. He has developed eLearning solutions in Lectora for 7 years, including external HTML, CSS, and JavaScript extensions to resolve various web accessibility issues, and has created accessible Lectora templates. He can be reached on LinkedIn at Joe Payne. The post Accessibility: How to Order Title Objects in Lectora appeared first on .

In my last blog, I described what a variable is. It’s just a named container in which you can store a value. But why would you ever want to create your own user-defined variables? The simple answer is when you need to store a value for later use and there is currently nowhere else to store it. You can create your own storage unit out of thin air! Lectora® eLearning software provides a ton of useful variables for you to use automatically, but the Lectora programmers can’t possibly anticipate everything you might ever want to create. Here is a simple example of an instance where you would want to create your own user-defined variable. Let’s say you want to make an interactive slideshow that lets the user click ‘next’ and ‘back’ buttons to navigate forwards and backwards through a set of 10 images. Think a little bit about how this would need to work. You’ll need to know which image to show when the buttons are clicked and also keep track of which image is currently being shown so that you know when to enable and disable the navigation buttons when the first and last images are shown. DING! You need to make a user-defined variable for this because one doesn’t already exist. So, let’s make a variable! Making your own variables in Lectora is super easy. Open the Variable Manager from the Tools ribbon. The User-Defined tab is active by default. Click the Add button at the bottom of the tab. This creates a new variable and enables the Variable Information options on the right. By default, the new variable is named Variable1. But that’s not very descriptive, so you’ll want to change the name to something that describes what the variable will contain. Let’s call the variable _CurrentImage. (Tip: I like to start my variable names with an underscore so that they are placed at the top of the list in the Lectora variable selection menus.) Type that name into the Variable Name field. Now type the number 1 into the Initial Value field and click the OK button. TA-DA! You have magically created a new variable in which you can store a value and from which you can retrieve a value! Ok, so we have set an initial value of 1 for the _CurrentImage variable because we are going to show the first of our 10 images by default when the slideshow starts. So, the number 1 represents the first image. But as the user uses the slideshow we are going to change the value of _CurrentImage every time the user clicks the ‘next’ and ‘back’ buttons, so we know which image to show. To do this we will add actions to the ‘next’ and ‘back’ buttons that add 1 and subtract 1 from the _CurrentImage variable respectively. With these actions, we are both retrieving a value from and putting a new value into the _CurrentImage variable. The ‘IF’ condition retrieves the current value of _CurrentImage first. Then, if the condition is met, the actions then store a new value in the variable by adding 1 to it or subtracting 1 from it. The Modify Variable action is the primary method of putting a value into a variable or changing its current value. But you can also initialize the variable with a value when you create it in the Variable Manager as we did earlier. As for retrieving a variable’s value, you do this every time you use a condition with an action because all conditions are based on some variable’s value, whether it’s a Lectora variable or one that you created. You are also retrieving a variable value when you use a variable in the Value field of a Modify Variable action or when you use one in the Text field of a Change Contents action. But back to our slideshow…  Oh, looky here! It’s the slideshow we’ve been talking about! Playing with it is a lot more fun than talking about it! Give it a whirl and watch what happens to the _CurrentImage variable value when you click the buttons. Also notice how the ‘back’ and ‘next’ buttons disable when the value of _CurrentImage reaches 1 or 10. I could go on and on talking about how the slideshow was built and posting more screen captures, but a better way to understand how it works is to poke around in the source files for yourself! Download Lectora Desktop Version Download Lectora Online Version As I mentioned in my last blog, I am primarily a hands-on learner. So, when I was first learning to use Lectora, getting my hands on other people’s source files and digging around in them to understand how they worked was like gold! If you are a hands-on learner like me, I strongly encourage you to visit the Share section of the Trivantis Community where you will find tons of source files to download, including a slightly fancier version of this slideshow interaction. Also, if you’d like more information about variables and their use in Lectora, a great resource is the Knowledge Base section of the Trivantis Community. Just type "variables" into the Search field, and you will find a wealth of submissions about variables there. Lectora Basics is your intro to eLearning authoring with Lectora. In this blog series, Wendy Miller, Lead Content Developer here at Trivantis, will introduce you to fundamental concepts in Lectora. Wendy is a visual designer and computer programmer with extensive experience developing software, courseware, web sites, games, and multimedia. Other Lectora Basics articles: • Lectora Basics: What Is a Variable? The post Lectora Basics: Using User-Defined Variables appeared first on .

This guest blog was written by Sergey Snegirev, founder of BranchTrack.com, a cool online branching scenarios builder compatible with Lectora®, and owner of INTEA, an eLearning development company. If you are going to DevLearn this year, make sure you drop by the Lectora booth #239 and say hi to Sergey, who will be there from September 29 to October 1. You can also contact him at sergey@branchtrack.com. When a client says, "We need this title to work on phones, tablets, and desktops," it is music to my ears. Such projects require designing multiple layouts and controls, creating actions to switch between different views, and adding a lot of custom JavaScript to make it all work across various devices and browsers. For me, it all means more work and bigger budgets, which is great when you own an eLearning company. Not so great, however, if you are a corporate eLearning developer. The upcoming Lectora Responsive Course Design™ (RCD) (now in beta) makes managing layouts for different devices much easier as well as takes care of scaling your title to fill the width of any device regardless of its physical size. However, catering to multiple devices is still a lot of work. So, I’m offering you a few tips to help you build better responsive courses, faster. Scroll is back Most eLearning courses I’ve seen were designed to fit on a single screen. However, this is not feasible with phones. Trying to fit all your content on a single screen will result in nothing but frustration for you or for the learners trying to read your content in fine print. Thanks to Facebook and just about every website in the world, contemporary phone users love scrolling for new content, so make sure your course has long vertical pages and comfortable font sizes. Lectora RCD will take care of fitting your course width and making the rest scrollable. Adapt Framework is a great example of this approach, now completely feasible with Lectora. Avoid drag and drops I always avoided using drag and drop exercises, as they can be challenging to non tech-savvy users (or users with disabilities) and generally don’t offer much more instructional value than a set of good old multiple choice questions. With touch-screen devices entering the picture, dragging and dropping items around becomes even more of a nuisance to your learners. Less large images, more flat shapes Images look nice, but they don’t scale too well, and cropping them to fit different screen layouts takes time. It is much easier to use flat shapes (such as Lectora shapes) that scale better and don’t get distorted when you resize them. In general, flat colorful shapes are easier to manage and provide a modern look for your course. See the Lectora User Conference App for an example of simple, flat design. Use fonts for icons Due to their vector-based nature, fonts scale up and down perfectly on any device, so you don’t have to worry about your icons becoming fuzzy and unreadable. There are dozens of icon fonts that contain pictograms for e.g. "back," "forward," "menu," "glossary," "important," and so on. The most popular fonts are Font Awesome and IcoMoon. I’ve explained how you can add your own custom fonts to Lectora title in a recent blog. Learn some JavaScript Lectora stands out from other tools with its unique extensibility. You can add custom media players, manipulate strings, use gestures on mobile devices, change font size on the fly, and much, much more. I recommend you start with this 4-part blog series on using JQuery (a library that simplifies many JavaScript tasks) with Lectora. Editor’s Note: Make sure you visit Sergey at the Lectora DevLearn booth and let him know how much you liked this blog post. Stay tuned for information about the upcoming RCD Beta test for Lectora desktop. The post Preparing for Responsive Course Design: 5 Things You Should Start Doing Now Anyway appeared first on .

I know we said that August was a lively month here at Trivantis—I’m going to say it about September too. This month we released a new version of ReviewLink™, our online collaboration tool (sign up for a free trial). We’ve also been getting ready for DevLearn 2015 (stop by booth #239 and say hello), where we’re excited to be talking about Responsive Course Design™ (RCD) in Lectora®. Here are some more September news and eLearning how-to articles: 1. Why You Need the New ReviewLink This article shares all the details on the latest version of ReviewLink, such as how you can now upload Captivate® and Storyline® courses in addition to publishing Lectora titles for review. Plus, take a look at how a few companies used ReviewLink to save time and run a successful course pilot. 2. How and Why: GreenScreen eLearning Video Erik Lord of eLearning Chef talks about greenscreening in this article and accompanying video. He covers how to buy your own green screen and set up your own studio to record a presenter (you can use Camtasia®), along with why greenscreening is an effective eLearning technique that you can use to efficiently create videos that personalize the online learning experience. 3. Nuts and Bolts: Social Media for Learning Part 1: Extending, Including, Supporting Jane Bozarth’s Nuts and Bolts column for Learning Solutions Magazine is always a good read, and this article was an interesting and in-depth look at using social tools to stay connected with learners such as Pinterest boards for onboarding. 4. Accessibility: How to Order Title Objects in Lectora In this how-to article, Web Application Architect Joe Payne explains how to order objects in your Lectora eLearning course so that a screen reader software like JAWS can read them in a logical order for learners with visual impairments. 5. Lectora Basics: What Is a Variable? If you’ve ever been confused about variables, this post is for you. In this article, Wendy Miller explains the concept of variables using an interactive piece (that she built in Lectora!) to show you exactly what a variable is. Stay tuned for more posts like these from Wendy, including post number two in the Lectora Basics series—an intro to eLearning authoring with Lectora. Bonus RCD post by Sergey Snegirev, who will also be at DevLearn with the Trivantis team: Preparing for Responsive Course Design: 5 Things You Should Be Doing Now Anyway. What interesting eLearning articles did you read this month? Share them in the comments below. Captivate® is a registered trademark of Adobe Systems Incorporated. Storyline® is a registered trademark of Articulate Global, Inc. The post The Best of eLearning in September 2015 appeared first on .

  "Freelancer." "Independent contractor." Consultant." Sound familiar? 50 percent of the American workforce will be freelancing by 2020, according to Freelancers Union projections. They call freelancing "the new normal." According to a July 2015 survey of freelance workers by Upwork, contract history and feedback from previous clients was the number one most important factor in winning a work project. Of course, you can’t just click your heels three times and become a successful freelancer with a steady rotation of clients who will recommend you to others. So, how do you break into the freelance market? I scoured the internet for tips—here they are! 1. Be a social butterfly. Christopher Pappas of eLearning Industry says, "An important part of being successful in the eLearning industry is getting your name out there and growing your online visibility." A great way to achieve this is through social media sites, such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Google Plus, and Twitter. He recommends posting "regular updates, publish your eLearning articles that others might find interesting, and keep in touch with current and potential clients." Read more from Christopher Pappas here: 7 Tips Every eLearning Freelancer Should Know to Land More Jobs. Bonus tip: eLearning forums like the Trivantis Community are a great place to network! Join today. 2. Tell everyone you know. While the first tip is about connecting with professionals already in the eLearning market that you don’t know, experts also recommend leveraging connections you already have. UX designer Emil Lamprecht shares his secrets to becoming a successful freelancer in a CareerFoundry.com article, including saying "the very first thing I did when deciding to make the switch [to freelance] was to get in touch with every single person I have ever known and told them my decision. I told them the field I was going to be working in and as it became clear, even the date I was planning to leave my awful day job (in 30 days time). I also told them that I would be more than happy to take on projects straight away…for three reasons: experience, contacts, and references." 3. It’s all about that portfolio. This particular tip echoed across the internet: "Portfolios should be considered the cornerstone for every e-learning professional," says instructional designer and consultant Ashley Chiasson. "For e-learning professionals, and for many folks working in other visual industries, a visual portfolio is essential. I said it. Essential. A portfolio will help you out if you eventually seek to change jobs, roles, or move into a freelance/contracting role, and it will quell the inevitable question from prospective employers/clients, ‘can we see some work samples and/or your portfolio?’" 4. Choose your examples wisely. Another instructional designer, Kristen Anthony, had suggestions on how to make your portfolio the best possible. She says, "If you’re serious about getting experience and building a portfolio the secret sauce that will set you apart (come closer…) is to make stuff that does two things: First, is indicative of the type of stuff you actually want to be doing when you are employed. Second, illustrates to your target audience that you know how to solve their pain points." 5. Pitch to clients you’re interested in. Freelance writer Elizabeth Nicholas says, "Whether you’re a freelance writer, marketer or graphic designer, your clients will be hiring you for your skills, not your comprehensive knowledge of their company or industry." Why does this matter? According to Nicholas, you shouldn’t go after "companies you think you should because of your experience, but rather pursue companies or work you believe in. Why? Because if you’re not interested in the work, it’ll be even harder to finish, since you won’t have a boss looking over your shoulder." See all her tips here: How to Become a Successful Freelancer in 6 Months. And of course, one last tip from your friends at Trivantis: Download a free 30-day trial of Lectora® Inspire, so you can make amazing eLearning samples for your portfolio! The post 5 Tips for Promoting and Pitching Yourself as an eLearning Freelancer appeared first on .

Tracking learner success is always on trend; it’s how learning and development professionals determine the effectiveness of training initiatives. xAPI (often called The Experience API, Tin Can, or the next generation of SCORM) helps us measure learner success by tracking many types of learning experiences. So, for this Thursday’s Trending eLearning Topic, I decided to focus on xAPI and collect resources that can help you understand xAPI and just a few of the possibilities for tracking training at your organization. Here are a few blog posts, articles, and videos on xAPI: • Why the Experience API Is Crucial to Your eLearning Success • The Experience API: What You Need to Know • Lectora Inspire 12.0 Best Practices for xAPI • Rick Zanotti interviews one Lectora® user on xAPI in Lectora Live 9: Jared Schaalje on Lectora Templates & xAPI • Lectora and xAPI If you’re using Lectora, this xAPI Launcher that John Blackmon, Chief Technical Officer at Trivantis, posted in the Trivantis Community can help (another great reason to join the community: • xAPI Launcher John also shared this pdf as an additional resource: • Launching xAPI content without an LMS You can even attend xAPI Camp, a one-day learning event that includes xAPI case studies and ideas. And of course, this trending topic roundup wouldn’t be complete without a link to the experienceapi.com website, where the folks at Rustici Software provide clear and in-depth explanations of xAPI, how it works, and more. Have you used xAPI to track learner activity at your company? Share your experience in the comments or start a discussion in the Trivantis Community. Want more trending topics? Take a look at last month’s post on eLearning for all generations. The post Thursday’s Trending eLearning Topic: xAPI appeared first on .

Sharing—and receiving—criticism on a project at work is tough. "Threats to our standing in the eyes of others are remarkably potent biologically, almost as those to our very survival," explains psychologist Daniel Goleman. In our brains, criticism is seen as a threat to our survival. If criticism isn’t presented well, our brains try to protect us from the threat, which can prevent us from benefiting and improving our eLearning work. As challenging as it is to give criticism on an eLearning course carefully, ensuring that the delivery is smooth and organized can be a huge help. Collaboration software like ReviewLink™ can allow team members, SMEs, and anyone involved in the development process to share feedback in an efficient way, when used correctly. And following the tips below can help prevent constructive criticism from coming across as a threat to fellow colleagues. Special thanks to our Lead Content Developer at Trivantis, Wendy Miller, for sharing her tips for giving and receiving constructive criticism in ReviewLink. 5 tips for giving constructive criticism in ReviewLink: 1. Be very specific about what your comment is referring to. If you are commenting on a piece of content that isn’t always visible on the page, like a popup or a tab, state where to find the content. Avoid vague and unhelpful generalizations such as "Not engaging" unless you plan to provide specifics about how to improve it. 2. Always clearly state the action to be taken by the developer. If more than one person is reviewing the content and there are differing opinions on an issue, try to resolve the conflict and state the action to be taken before sending the course back to the developer.  3. Be diplomatic. "That picture sucks" is not a useful comment. There are no language police on ReviewLink, but try to be as diplomatic as you can and always make a suggestion for how you would like to see something changed or improved. 4. Be a guide. When you provide feedback, you can suggest alternate ideas, but don’t be authoritarian about it. Think of the review process as a conversation, and don’t make your feedback the voice of final authority. Even though you may have a good plan, you still want the developer to have ownership of the course. Here’s a great article with more rules for giving feedback. 5. If more than 1 person is reviewing, read all existing comments first before making a new comment. Your issue may have already been posted and you can add to the conversation if necessary. Make the Comment Summary unique from any existing comments on the page if possible. This will make it easier for the developer to find and address individual issues.  What are your suggestions for giving constructive criticism on an eLearning course? Share them in the comments below. Try ReviewLink free today—sign up for a free 30-day trial. The post The Truth Hurts: Giving Constructive Criticism appeared first on .

With mLearning on the rise, learners are starting to expect to be able to take courses on their mobile devices—and they expect them to look good. There are certain best practices you should always follow to ensure your courses provide the best user experience. First things first: bigger isn’t always better. I know my phone is constantly telling me that I don’t have enough memory to even update the apps already on my phone—let alone download an entire eLearning course! (I use my phone to take a lot of pictures of my cat, as loyal Everything eLearning Blog readers have probably noticed.) John Blackmon, Chief Technology Officer of Trivantis, recommends that you always keep course bandwidth in mind when creating mobile learning. "That 500MB HD video that looked so great on the desktop version of your course just takes too long to download on your student’s phone to be useful. You can create a much smaller resolution version of the video, or perhaps cut out any unneeded sequences so that it is quick and to the point for your mobile user," says Blackmon. File size isn’t the only thing you want to cut down on. You should also consider how long your course would take for the user to complete. "Generally, when the course is being consumed on a mobile device, the user is on the go, and doesn’t have time for a three hour sit down course. Keep the material short and pertinent to the task at hand," says Blackmon. That probably means you shouldn’t add any superfluous cat photos, unfortunately… Embrace the touch screen. "Whether you’re building content for delivery on a smartphone or tablet, remember to design for touch," says Laura Silver, VP of Product Management at Trivantis. "This naturally applies to buttons, which you’ll want to make ‘finger friendly’—easy to tap with the pad of your fingertip." You can check out her tutorial on building finger-friendly buttons for mLearning to learn more. Sergey Snegirev of BranchTrack recommends avoiding drag and drop questions when designing mobile learning. Why? "They can be challenging to non tech-savvy users (or users with disabilities)," he says. "With touch-screen devices entering the picture, dragging and dropping items around becomes even more of a nuisance to your learners." Ready to create some amazing mLearning? The upcoming Responsive Course Design™ in Lectora® is just what you need! Check out this whitepaper for more information and stay tuned for the Lectora desktop beta test of Responsive Course Design (RCD) coming in mid October. The post Want to Create the Best Responsive Courses? Follow These Best Practices appeared first on .

We’re back! Team Trivantis® took a field trip to Las Vegas last week for DevLearn 2015. We had some awesome guests at our booth, Sergey Snegirev and Rick Zanotti, and loved getting to talk to our users in person. (Jen Johnson, Sergey Snegirev from BranchTrack, Daryl Fleary) We also had a blast hanging out with our friends the eLearning Brothers and giving away a free license of Lectora® Inspire. (That’s Jen Johnson, Director of Sales, in the Expo Hall with those awesome bros—and Elvis! Photo by the eLearning Brothers.) Of course, it wasn’t all fun and games at DevLearn 2015. Serious learning happened in the breakout sessions and at DemoFest. So, what were the hot topics this year? 1. xAPI xAPI isn’t really the "new kid on the block" anymore, but it’s still what everyone is talking about. Lectora has supported xAPI since its release, and many people stopping by our booth told us that Lectora is the best tool on the market for xAPI. Learn more about Lectora and xAPI in this post: Thursday’s Trending eLearning Topic: xAPI. 2. Responsive Course Design Our newest feature, Responsive Course Design™ (RCD), generated a lot of buzz at DevLearn. John Blackmon, Chief Technology Officer, and Daryl Fleary, Product Manager, showed a demo of RCD in Lectora. If you missed it, view a recorded webinar from John on RCD in the Trivantis Community. (Daryl and John before their presentation) 3. The Cloud It was clear at DevLearn that more and more companies are moving to the cloud. Some attendees we talked to would only consider products in the cloud! Which makes Trivantis products a great fit-Lectora Online, ReviewLink™, and CourseMill® Hosted all work in the cloud. 4. ReviewLink for All We also got to share our other big news—that ReviewLink is now available for use with Adobe® Captivate and Articulate® Storyline courses in addition to Lectora content. ReviewLink is our online review tool that lets eLearning developers host published courses and manage feedback all in one place. The latest version of ReviewLink is also responsive. Start your free trial and discover a faster, simpler, more effective review process today! We hope to see you next year at DevLearn 2016! The post DevLearn 2015 Recap appeared first on .