Adapt Learning Community: Five tips for providing more mobile friendly content

Back in 2012 Google carried out some interesting research into cross platform user behaviour that revealed how seamlessly we move between smartphone, tablet and pc to achieve tasks online. Perhaps more interestingly, it also revealed how our behaviours change to reflect the devices being used at a given time.

I thought I’d revisit the research a few years down the line and focus on some of the statistics most relevant to mobile learning and pull together a few more top tips, this time for creating and delivering Adapt content that’s going to be accessed on the move.

Let's look at just a few of the stats.

“90% of users move sequentially between devices to accomplish a goal”

Potential relevance to learning:

Sequential screening ‘may’ mean learners use multiple devices to complete learning activities

“PC’s for productive, task orientated activities, tablets for entertainment and smartphone’s for communication and quick access to content”

“Smartphones have the highest number of user interactions but the lowest average time spent per interaction”

Potential relevance to learning:

Assume content will be viewed in quick bursts
Content needs to be easy to access with no or low barriers to entry
There’s a real opportunity to leverage the capabilities of the device for collaboration
Don’t look to make everything available for the phone

“34% use the device closest to hand when looking for information”

“80% of smartphone usage was spontaneous, of which 44% was to accomplish a goal”

“Context drives the choice of device we choose to use at a given time”

Potential relevance to learning:

Content accessed via a smartphone might be:
- due to convenience, in which case learners will accept compromises between ease of access, depth of content covered, quality of production (although this is becoming less of an issue)
- unplanned, implying content is needed urgently and at the point of need so it needs to be performance support aids rather than ‘deep dive’ tutorials
- be accessed in learners own time, in which case they’ll be more likely to be looking for games, articles and other less formal types of activities

This research shows that the smartphone has gone from being a fall back device that was only used when no better alternative was available to being at the very centre of our daily interactions with the digital medium. In addition, we as users have well-formed expectations of what we expect about our mobile experiences and bring to bear refined patterns of behaviours. We’re going to have to match this level of sophistication if we’re serious about learning on the smartphone.

So, with this in mind here are five tips for designing and delivering better Adapt content for the mobile learner:

Produce single page modules that address a single subject or learning objective and with a focus on performance support
Keep these pages very short and do away with everything unless it’s absolutely necessary
…including all but the most critical exemplifiers, contexts, etc. These can still be provided in separate, associated modules if still required and accessed at a later date and on a more appropriate device
Whilst we’re at it, remove the tracked quiz and place this in its own standalone assessment. Given the choice, I suspect most learners would most likely prefer to attempt these on a PC/tablet anyway.
Place as few barriers as possible between the content and learner. Consider not placing the tutorial content on the LMS at all if:
1. it’s likely to be needed by a mobile audience
2. if the LMS doesn’t have a mobile friendly theme
3. there’s a separate assessment which is being tracked

The above tips don’t factor in the Tin Can API, which is already having an impact on what’s possible with mobile learning - but that’s a whole separate post!

In the meantime I hope these are helpful. Does anyone have a different view or perhaps a few more of their own to add?

Thanks,

Paul

Thank you Paul for these great tips! I am a learning strategies consultant (at Vienna-based LearnChamp) and I am therefore particularly interested in “the bigger picture” that you draw, i.e. who are our learners? What are their needs? And in which environments do they access learning?

As you point out, content for mobile devices, especially for smartphones, has to be really succinct. According to Towards Maturity’s report “Learning in the Mobile Enterprise” (2014), the majority of learners access mobile learning at the point of need and are looking for a brief answer to a question. What I am wondering: How do we keep content short without losing any essential information and without over-simplifying complex subjects? What do you think about this?

Another point is: Often, while using mobile devices, learners may be in environments with a number of potential interruptions, e.g. on a commute, in a waiting area etc. If the risk of interruptions and distractions is high, we will also have to consider how to grab learners’ attention and how to reduce the effort required to resume learning after these interruptions. Do you have any best-practice examples for this?

Looking forward to your comments,

Elisabeth

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Hi Elisabeth,

Thanks for your comments.

Here’s my two pennies worth on duration vs content coverage. I think generally, and not just for mobile delivery, that elearning needs to move away from our CBT roots and embrace a more modern approach to digital learning. I do think there is a tendency to present the learner with too much content in online courses at the best of times and I whilst its sometimes a hard sell, I do think less can often be more. But I take your point, how do we do this and not dilute the message for more complex subjects?

I believe that breaking up larger courses into small, discrete chunks that can work alone in isolation, but which can be combined appropriately where necessary is the way to go. Obviously the trend to shorter course has been around for a while with the whole resources not courses approach but the move towards adaptive learning approaches will mean this granular approach becomes a necessity. I guess this will also mean that mobile learners can access the content they need for performance support on the phone, whilst the context and more exploratory type materials can be accessed on the laptop/tablet. The key will be to make sure that the content likely to be accessed at the point at need is designed with mobile in mind.

Obviously shorter modules mean the scope for an interruption to occur is minimised (and finding where you were beforehand is less of a drag). I also think that if we’re talking about learners accessing content at the point of need to solve a given problem then they’ll probably already be engaged with the content and just want the ‘good stuff’ without all the waffle. For those learners keen to make the most of their time on a commute I think some of the old design approaches are relevant, they’re just shorter, snappier and use appropriate treatments/media and with simple nav and appropriate UI. I'm actually working on some prototypes at the minute that adopt a more editorial type approach. The idea is you present a short article and use thumbnails embedded within this content which when selected launch components to allow interested readers to delve deeper.

In addition, we can mitigate the risks further by Including bookmarking (and looking to use Tin Can as we can capture data with intermittent connections).

I’ll see if I can get permission to post some client examples.

Anyway, that's where I’m currently at with it. What’s your take, Elisabeth?

Cheers,

Paul

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Hi Paul!

Thank you for your immediate response and your suggestions! I think, with mobile learning appearing on the stage, learning designers (and strategists) have to select even better beforehand which information will be suitable for which channel. When it comes to smartphones, the preferred device when people are on the go, we might have to restrict information to nuggets of microlearning, to refresher modules, to quick reminders or job aids. Content on mobile devices could also serve as a kind of teaser which stimulates learners’ curiosity and persuades them to log on through their desktop PCs or tablets to delve deeper later on. With concepts such as “mobile first” I think we are on the right track.

As concerns potential distractions and interruptions: So far I see only one solution: We have to present great content AND at the same time have to make learning even more engaging, more worth learners’ precious time and maybe even: more fun (imagine that! Anyone rolling their eyes yet?). By great content I mean: relevant, well-structured, didactically sound, concise and crisp. So, the learning design basics.

On top of that, we have to make learning more compelling. When it comes to learners’ engagement, I think, learning design can take a bit of inspiration from web and editorial design as well as from advertising. Of course, we are not in the entertainment business – our business is serious. ;) Yet, we should be careful not to make it DEAD serious (nobody wants lifeless courses). So, just because it’s learning this does not mean that courses have to be dry. I think learning and advertising share at least two characteristics: Both rival for people’s attention and both try to persuade them and want to elicit a certain kind of behaviour.

So what I think we have to make clear to learners is: Why should they spend their time on our e-learning modules? What will be their benefit? Moreover, we have to become better at the “persuasive arts”: storytelling and design, amongst others. Any other suggestions on this note?

Cheers,
Elisabeth

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Hi Elisabeth,

Thanks for sharing your interesting views on the subject.

For the record, I completely agree. Obviously having the ability to unchain the learner from the one hour, desk bound experience means we can think about a much broader learner ‘experience’. But to my mind, the size, shape and style of what we offer needs to change too if we’re going to succeed in this ‘noisier’ environment. As you quite rightly outline, we’re going to have to demand, entice or be immediately useful/invaluable if we’re going to win the battle for a learner’s attention which is being pulled this way and that.

I do believe that we’re in a period of transition where emerging technologies, more maturity in the techniques used to present online content and increased user sophistication do provide us with a real opportunity to do things differently and for the better, and not just on the smartphone. Compelling, well targeted content that engages and inspires (rather than patronises) and which uses technology to enhance the experience, rather than being used as a mechanism to serve up dry, text book style content. I’d buy that! J

On a related note, a few of us this morning we’re talking about some of the interactive journalism that’s being produced and considering how we might adopt some similar approaches. The example provided is still built on the solid foundations of a well told, interesting story but it’s ably supported by the interactivity and media made available by the web. I’m interested in this and think there may be some interesting techniques to explore further (at least on tablet/mobile) What are your views?

Thanks,
Paul

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Thank you Paul for this interesting example of interactive journalism. I had come across the New York Times’s Snow Fall earlier. I was amazed at the variety of media and the aesthetics. Yet, at the same time, I also felt kind of overwhelmed by all the different bits and formats of information. Where should I start? How do the different bits relate to each other?

If we transferred my experience to our learners, we would have to make sure that they do not waste time and cognitive capacity when being confronted with such a load of information. We could improve their experience by using clear “signposting”, i.e. navigation. Or we could make modules available one after the other, each depending on passing the previous one. Do you have different views on this issue?

Cheers,
Elisabeth

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Hi Elisabeth,

Yes, I also saw snowfall and felt that whilst very slick (I love the way the map is bought into view with the scroll) it was possibly a bit too much. I prefer the firestorms approach regarding copy size, the use of side nav for signposting/quick navigation although for our needs I think the pages are far, far too long. Interesting they’re both about the natural disasters, I wonder how well the approach stands up when talking about something more mundane.

We can actually do much of what’s shown in the articles with Adapt (embedded components/wipes) but I think we’ll need a slightly different approach for learning. I’m exploring an idea at present where we can have a magazine style layout to present the story/learning and allow the embedding of thumbnails which once selected open up Adapt components in a window over the article. Initial prototypes are promising – I’ll post up an example when I have something to show.

I take your point about cognitive load and agree we’ll need to keep an eye on it and with regards to the approach I outline above I’m thinking something far shorter. When I talk about Adapt I always say there is a tendency to put entire topics into a single pages but often the most appropriate break would be at the ‘chunk’ level. Of course, in my opinion this does depend on the subject matter and topic length. Does that make sense?

All the best,

Paul

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Thank you Paul! Your ideas absolutely do make sense. :) I'm curious to see an example of the magazine style layout you mentioned. It sounds like an intriguing project you’re working on.

I am not sure whether you follow Jane Hart’s blog. Yesterday, she published a blog post in which she voiced many of the concerns that you and I discussed in the last couple of days: She stresses the need for brevity and relevance. Her argument is that the biggest competitor to formal training (and not only elearning) is the internet with its youtube videos, forums etc. I think she really has a point there. You can find her article here.

Cheers,
Elisabeth

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I've been exploring these editorial style layouts for the proposals I've been working on recently (I work as a Solutions Designer at C&G Kineo). Hoping to share something on here soon, once we are a little further into production. I've used them in a couple of different contexts - firstly as tutorial support in a challenge/support model and secondly as a combined editorial page and menu. I think this second usage is the most interesting. In this case we had editorial content, providing a brief overview of each topic, alongside the interactive elements outlined by graphics and icons on the page. Each of the interactive elements would launch on top of this menu page itself in a lightbox.

I liked how the learners weren't being taken to different pages to access content, but it was all there for them in one place. The design was similar to news sites that learners would likely be familiar with, making navigation and interaction intuitive. Feedback from customers was that it felt that learners were less likely to describe it as 'learning' being so far from the traditional screen-to-screen style that they were used to, while they were more likely to pick up on the key messages/behavior changes led by the learning. Would be useful to do a full evaluation of a course using this approach to assess this further.

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Hi Liz/Elisabeth,

Liz, thanks for post! I’ve seen the designs and they looked great and really hope we can share them soon.

Elisabeth - I follow Jane on Twitter but I hadn’t read the article so thanks for the link. You know, I can see the instructional design role being part content curator pulling together other freely available content online as well as our current role as content creator. At the moment that might be a hard sell but that’s what we’re up against (especially for mobile, just in time/non-specialist subject matter). I can think of 3 or 4 instances over the last week or two where I’ve been on YouTube to get some guidance on how to complete a few DIY tasks. The videos were easy to find and quick to access, the quality was good enough for me to get what I needed and I felt confident that the information being provided was authoritative and accurate – it works.

Obviously in a professional situation this content would want to be vetted, efforts made to maintain links and compliment with new content where necessary. I’m sure there are plenty of potential hiccups as well but to me at least it’s an interesting idea.

Thanks,

Paul

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