Defining a Screen Shot with Many Fields

Jul 14, 2016

Nikole Dalton
By Nikole Dalton

Hello!

I am fairly new to the eLearning game, but I am looking to update my courses as I find them extremely boring. The problem that I am encountering is I have screen shots with many fields that need defining. Typically the courses are explaining a workflow through a  series of screen shots  with each screen shot needing many field definitions.

I have been adding a small info icon that the user hovers over to get the definition. This seems to get the job done, but I find that when I am done my screen shot is full of too many small icon buttons (almost like my screen has a disease) and the user gets bored easily as all they are doing is hovering. I have also tried breaking down the screen shot so there are only a few, but have found that the user gets lost at which portion of the screen we are focusing on.

Does anyone have any ideas as to a better way to break this workflow/each screen down?

1 Reply
Bob S
almost 8 years ago07/14/16 at 9:22 pm (UTC)

Nikole,

One suggestion that may be a bit out of the regular lane...  don't define every field in detail.   Seriously.

Instead focus on teaching the most common scenarios only, one at a time, and do NOT teach the rare stuff. Rather include those situations in reference docs only because they won't remember it anyways when it comes time to use them.

For example....

  1. "Here is the most common situation/task and we will take you through it"
  2. "Now here is the second most common scenario. It is exactly like the first but only differs in these particular areas"  (And teach ONLY the differences for the impacted fields)
  3. "And as for the uncommon situations, we have included this handy reference guide so that you can look up the specifics when they occur. But rest assured if you can complete the two most common situations then the oddballs are pretty easy once you know which fields to change and the guide shows that to you."

For this type of system training, the 80/20 rule is the key.  Avoid the caveats, oddballs, and rare occurrences and include them in reference materials only...Otherwise you get into the exact type of situation you are describing.  ;-)

Hope this helps!

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