Rules for Good Design
- Establish a formal development process that is best suited for your
product. Each step of your process should focus on meeting the needs
of the user. Listen, plan, design, test, build, deliver, observe, and
refine. Quality outcomes depend on complete process fulfillment. Look
at The
Development Process for suggestions.
- Choose media types based on learning objectives. Never use technology
just because you know how or want to impress someone. Before you choose
to use video clips, for example, ask yourself whether motion or time-based
sequencing are essential elements of the point you are teaching. If
not, then forgo using video. Users of your WBT or WBPSS product will
be more impressed with rational choices of media types and technologies
that speed learning and improve human performance.
- Provide ample opportunity for the user to interact with the information.
Clever instructional design forces the user to roll and tumble an idea
in his or her mind, an effective method of mental interaction not requiring
an oral or motor response. On the other hand, object-oriented programming
components; such as those available in HTML, Java, and Shockwave; offer
ways to add interactive design elements that engage the learner. Buttons,
hot spots (image maps and hyperlinks), controls, voice recognition,
movable objects, and data entry fields: each has its use in instructional
design. Keep in mind that your design goal should be to encourage intellectual
interaction with the training information, not simply include lots of
click areas. Interactions should always test informational skills and
cognition, or they should activate more information the trainee can
use to advance learning.
- Design products that adapt to the users’ abilities and intelligently
respond to the users’ input. If the user is having difficulty with
one concept or task, offer remediation through extra information presentation
and reinforcement or suggest alternative resources (other courses, publications,
or hyperlinked information). Provide meaningful feedback to user input
that reinforces a concept and hardens the foundation for further learning.
- Keep in mind that people learn in a variety of ways. Even if a user
analysis indicates a homogeneous target audience for your product, rest
assured that the users will learn through a variety of styles. Visual
learners need lots of graphic illustrations to understand concepts and
relationships. Verbal learners use text and narration to accomplish
the same end. Think through each bit of information presentation and
whether learners with differing learning styles will benefit equally.
- Reject linear thinking; abandon linear design. A highly structured,
top down approach to instructional design does not address the needs
and preferences of most trainees. WBT, and the Web itself, is the world
of hypermedia, where the user decides the direction best suited for
accomplishing his or her goal: to learn. While it is perfectly acceptable
to suggest a path through a course, it is not acceptable to
require a predetermined path through linear design or demand the same
through disabled choices. Good WBT design allows the user to "begin
in the middle and end at the beginning," even though, in truth,
the beginning is wherever the user chooses to start and the end wherever
he stops.
- Respect the learner. Avoid any content or feedback that is instructionally
insignificant, annoying, or degrading. Do not set the user up to fail
a task in an effort to teach him a lesson. For feedback, say "A
better choice ..." or "The correct choice ..." instead
of "No, stupid. Bad choice." People read at different rates,
so do not display information that disappears after a short time. Finally,
in WBT especially, long load times for insignificant information are
annoying--make every bit of downloaded information count.
- Test your designs on real users. This applies to both the instructional
design and the user interface, with all its icons, buttons, and navigational
features. Your personal concept of usability may not apply to the target
audience. Seek the advice of a usability engineer, human factors expert,
or cognitive psychologist. Products of bad design instill resentment
in the user and place a barrier to learning. The developers' maxim:
test early, test often.
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