How many iterations do you need?
We’ve had the privilege of working on many large projects with some of the biggest e-learning companies in the world so we know how they work. When a major e-learning production company tells you that you get two iterations, or even three, for each stage of the design process, they are almost certainly going to be charging you more down the line because that won’t be enough and they can’t afford to be flexible. Their shareholders or Board will insist on this.
What’s wrong with storyboards?
Unless you’re an eLearning developer and spend most of your working day making e-learning it’s very hard to visualise what the final product is going to look like just from looking at a storyboard – even one with graphics.
This is a massive problem when it comes to production with certain old school e-learning tools *cough* Storyline *cough* Captivate. SME’s and other senior people who need to sign off your project before you publish, are time-poor and will only scan your early storyboards. You are just another minor task on their to-do list before the next important meeting. When you finally show them your first build, it’s not what they were expecting and now they want to re-write the whole thing.
Show don’t tell
The point is you need to get to a working prototype as quickly as possible to reduce the odds of any drastic changes that could de-rail your project. A working prototype allows people to experience a vanilla version of the final product. It’s a simple case of “showing” is better than “telling.”
Telling leads to assumptions and assumptions lead to poor communication. The space between starting a project and getting to a working version is chock full of assumptions and hence miscommunications that only get exposed later on:
“Oh that’s what that interaction does”
“Oh so this is what the animation looks like”= I assumed it would be more like that.” And so on.
Build to learn
We need to build to show how things work, we need to build to get the most valuable feedback, we need to build to learn. But if you’re using traditional e-learning development tools, that’s not possible. You need tools and skills that allow you to build instantly, to merge the storyboard process into the prototype development process.
That’s why we always recommend using Evolve Authoring and our truly iterative process. We’ve built up a deep knowledge of how to get the best out of Evolve and a proven, but always improving process that allows us to be truly flexible without going over budget.
We can build straight into Evolve and work with you to shape and mould the content into something that works for everyone. So, if you want to avoid that awkward situation of having to go to your boss and explain why the e-learning budget needs another £3k to get it over the line, talk to us first.