We have recently tested our prototype with a group of learners/users and this gave us the opportunity to gain valuable insight from a client/user perspective. The views were really useful and will help us in development in the future. Please see findings below:
Given the e-learning industry is busy removing the technical barriers to uptake; it is essential we shift our focus to the more important issues of pedagogy and culture. DeltaNet’s conference provided an ideal platform to explore these two areas in greater depth.
So, using the first release of the Adapt framework, DeltaNet created a prototype of a responsive design e-learning course (this can be viewed at http://adapt.academy0213.co.uk/appraisals/). We provided several different devices to allow participants to ‘have a go’ and provide us with their initial feedback. This is what we learned….
Navigation
To support ‘touch screen’ devices we (rather nervously) departed from the traditional ‘NEXT/PREVIOUS’ navigation and instead included top to bottom (vertical) scrolling:
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Generally most people enjoyed the new way of scrolling the course.
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If you include instructions such as “Scroll down to continue” some people misinterpret this and try to scroll the wrong way (up rather than down). They quickly realise their error so it caused little concern.
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It becomes easy to keep scrolling down and miss lots of information. Most people would like to see some sort of navigation blocker inserted to aid navigation between topics or blocks of information, without this becoming intrusive to the learning experience. It was felt this would make the course more interactive.
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People enjoyed having more freedom in how they navigated the course and some people would like the ‘freedom of navigation’ expanded e.g. to scroll left and right to change modules within a course.
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We implemented a commonly used mobile ‘Menu’ button in the prototype. At first many people didn’t notice this, but soon discovered how to use it and felt it was intuitive.
Alternative content for different screen sizes:
We included several examples of ‘alternative content’ for different screen sizes, and the general feedback was ‘less is more’:
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When using a mobile device with a much smaller screen there was a difference of opinion about usability:
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Some users found it easier to read scrolling text on the smaller device (perhaps they were used to this from reading web pages) than a tablet. In particular they enjoyed condensed chunks of more focused information on a smaller device whereas on a larger tablet the text could become lost when displayed as composite part of the overall content. So, in this instance ‘less’ content is achieved by displaying very specific content in isolation rather than displaying a more condensed version of the content.
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Other users didn’t like the amount of scrolling involved with the smaller screens and would prefer a different summary version of the text so they could use a mobile for refresher training on the go, rather than for initial training.
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People found watching full screen video on smaller devices more engaging than watching a video clip embedded in a page with other information displayed on larger screen sizes.
Other comments:
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People liked the fact that the assets change colour so that the learner can easily see where they’ve been.
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The prototype included limited animation and audio; this was seen by many as a step backwards and would need to be improved for production-standard content.
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To overcome the need for constant network connections people would like to be able to download a local copy of the content, complete the course without network connection, and then sync completion status back to the platform once they are back within coverage.
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(Particularly in the 2nd group) a ‘cultural barrier’ emerged with some people preferring to complete their e-learning on traditional PCs/Laptops rather than mobile devices. This may be down to habit (and the availability of mobile devices will naturally address this), or simply ‘consumer’ preference.
Certainly, as expected more work is required to address the pedagogy and cultural issues that came out of the session before we move to full scale production of responsive content. Which takes us to the next stage of the responsive design evolution process…..
Keep watching this space for updates on our progress and further opportunities to be involved with this exciting area.
