I wanted to float out a small sample of my first project. Since I'm a total n00b, I will be grateful for any and all feedback.
This will be a small project to begin building a portfolio. It's focused on getting teens to realize the dangers of talking on their phones while driving.
I'm adoring your use of fonts on these first few slides. I'm assuming your target audience is teens. I think you've picked the right style for that. (It's very now, indeed) I'll echo Bruce, that you'll need to consider how long they will stay engaged. Teens will make you earn every penny of your paycheck.
Suggestions to take or leave-
1. I like my buttons to have hover states. But that's just me. I know that on the internet, most buttons don't anymore. Maybe I'm old school. And it could very-well be that teens don't need the main button to have a hover state. But I always like a little border or color change that says, "Hey! I'm clickable!"
2. I'm working from a smallish laptop with 1600x900 resolution. The phone in the course was outside the bounds of my screen and I could not scroll to see the rest of it. That doesn't mean you need to change the size of your course, just be sure that in your player settings that you don't have it locked at the optimal size.
Out of curiosity, do you see this course as being all done on a computer or is there a mobile possibility?
Thanks for the feedback. My target are teens so I would want this to work in a mobile format. I'm using a demo of Captivate and I'm finding that I would need to resize for ipad and smartphone use which is disappointing. I understand this isn't the issue with Articulate? Since it was for my portfolio, I wanted it larger but might go ahead and do a smaller resolution so it can be viewed by more devices.
Any suggestions as to good resolution that works for most?
Good suggestion on the button hover state. I need to figure that out as the button is an image and I'm using a map shape to turn it into a button.
Oh geez. You're a designer by trade. Just saw that. Of COURSE your fonts are awesome! (on behalf of all font nerds, thank you)
To be honest, I have zero experience with captivate. When we got into elearning last year we jumped right into Storyline from the get-go.
In Storyline, if you get the screen ratio correct, the player setting will allow the content to be displayed at the user's actual screen size. There's a whole thread dedicated to the mobile player size.
Another reason I ask if you're wanting mobile ability is for design consideration. If you want this played on an iphone, as it is right now, the user would be seeing is an iphone basically within an iphone. Not a big deal just for an intro. Might reconsider if you were thinking of the whole course being framed inside an iphone. Also would be fine on an ipad. Just keep in mind that the screen size on a phone and a pad are not the same ratio. (pads are close to 4:3, phones are close to 4:2, the new iphone is closer to 4:1.5) For display purposes, I would limit the amount of time you use the iphone as a frame only because it will limit your content real-estate.
I hadn't given thought to the phone inside the phone issue. I don't think it's as big a problem on the ipad but I may need to do a separate version for a smart phone anyway because of the reduced size.
I'm still trying to make some decisions on using the iphone background. For the sake of a portfolio piece, I don't want to go too small so might not do a version to be viewed on a smart phone. This version fit an ipad pretty well.
I wondered if anyone might have any idea of the value of such a project. I know it's small and fairly simple but I'm trying to learn to estimate time/value and would appreciate any ideas as far as the range of cost of doing this if given the content. Though I researched and produced the content for this, I'm thinking my first projects would likely be taking someone else's content and putting it into this kind of format.
I liked your final version BUT I was surprised by your figures of 30,000 deaths caused by texting while driving. Not living in the US I thought I'd better check before I commented and found this link quoting teenage deaths for driving in 2010.
Rather than quoting death rates related to texting, which I suspect are hard to come by, I wonder if it would be just as powerful to compare the effect of alcohol on driving skills and of texting on driving skills, and then draw the conclusion about likely death rates. I know your demo is about your skills in producing an interesting product but viewers might start querying your figures, rather than appreciating what you've produced.
Hope you don't mind my comments. I really liked your approach otherwise.
Really liked the look and feel of the course. I was also impressed that you managed to keep it short enough to maintain interest without having to compromise on impact.
2 small suggestions from a learner's perspective.
1- As I think has already been mentioned, clickable stuff needs to look clickable. The next button isn't an issue because the arrow appears on it when you can click(visual indication that it is now clickable), but the statistics in the questions look very flat and you don't even get the 'hand' cursor. There are several ways to address this (if you choose to) such as using hover states, or putting the stats on buttons or using a brighter colour that is dedicated to clickable text alone.
2- Some of the slides auto transition whilst others don't. Because of the length of the course every word and phrase is important and I found that I accidentally missed pieces because I was momentarily distracted. I'd suggest making all the slides advance by user to ensure none of your message gets lost.
Very powerful course though. Well done, I think you've hit the target audience well.
I liked your final version BUT I was surprised by your figures of 30,000 deaths caused by texting while driving. Not living in the US I thought I'd better check before I commented and found this link quoting teenage deaths for driving in 2010.
Rather than quoting death rates related to texting, which I suspect are hard to come by, I wonder if it would be just as powerful to compare the effect of alcohol on driving skills and of texting on driving skills, and then draw the conclusion about likely death rates. I know your demo is about your skills in producing an interesting product but viewers might start querying your figures, rather than appreciating what you've produced.
Hope you don't mind my comments. I really liked your approach otherwise.
Wow. I'm glad you replied. My stat was injury from crashes and not deaths in 2011. I added a "0".
A tricky part about this is that many accidents caused by texting while driving goes unreported where most which involve alcohol is. And I'm finding a lot of conflicting data. One says 11 teens dies every day while texting (4,015 a year) while another says 3,328 total for all ages. Some say talking doubles the risk for an accident while other 4 times.
Really liked the look and feel of the course. I was also impressed that you managed to keep it short enough to maintain interest without having to compromise on impact.
2 small suggestions from a learner's perspective.
1- As I think has already been mentioned, clickable stuff needs to look clickable. The next button isn't an issue because the arrow appears on it when you can click(visual indication that it is now clickable), but the statistics in the questions look very flat and you don't even get the 'hand' cursor. There are several ways to address this (if you choose to) such as using hover states, or putting the stats on buttons or using a brighter colour that is dedicated to clickable text alone.
2- Some of the slides auto transition whilst others don't. Because of the length of the course every word and phrase is important and I found that I accidentally missed pieces because I was momentarily distracted. I'd suggest making all the slides advance by user to ensure none of your message gets lost.
Very powerful course though. Well done, I think you've hit the target audience well.
Love these suggestions. I need to learn how to do a hover state though I think I have the ability to change the cursor easily.
I struggled trying to decide whether to stop each slide or just delay it since the next slide often completed the sentence. I hadn't thought about the learner looking away so will rethink my current approach.
I enjoyed going through your project for teen driving in the US.
Well done!
How many hours did it take for this project?
Nicholas
I really didn't tally the hours as I was working through a tutorial as I was doing it. I suspect, if I were to do it again, I could knock it out in 8-12 hour range. It got much faster towards the end.
If anyone was asked to do this project, any range for an estimate if the script was provided?
17 Replies
Jeff......
How GREAT is that!
What a fabulous way to display - it is impactful, short, to the point, and powerful.
Love it.
Wow. That's very kind of you. Lots more to go.
I was just viewing your Being an eLearning Freelancer presentation just yesterday.
Just keep on doing what you are doing - but keep in mind the length of time they will stay engaged.
Jeff,
I'm adoring your use of fonts on these first few slides. I'm assuming your target audience is teens. I think you've picked the right style for that. (It's very now, indeed) I'll echo Bruce, that you'll need to consider how long they will stay engaged. Teens will make you earn every penny of your paycheck.
Suggestions to take or leave-
1. I like my buttons to have hover states. But that's just me. I know that on the internet, most buttons don't anymore. Maybe I'm old school. And it could very-well be that teens don't need the main button to have a hover state. But I always like a little border or color change that says, "Hey! I'm clickable!"
2. I'm working from a smallish laptop with 1600x900 resolution. The phone in the course was outside the bounds of my screen and I could not scroll to see the rest of it. That doesn't mean you need to change the size of your course, just be sure that in your player settings that you don't have it locked at the optimal size.
Out of curiosity, do you see this course as being all done on a computer or is there a mobile possibility?
Kevin,
Thanks for the feedback. My target are teens so I would want this to work in a mobile format. I'm using a demo of Captivate and I'm finding that I would need to resize for ipad and smartphone use which is disappointing. I understand this isn't the issue with Articulate? Since it was for my portfolio, I wanted it larger but might go ahead and do a smaller resolution so it can be viewed by more devices.
Any suggestions as to good resolution that works for most?
Good suggestion on the button hover state. I need to figure that out as the button is an image and I'm using a map shape to turn it into a button.
Thanks.
Oh geez. You're a designer by trade. Just saw that. Of COURSE your fonts are awesome! (on behalf of all font nerds, thank you)
To be honest, I have zero experience with captivate. When we got into elearning last year we jumped right into Storyline from the get-go.
In Storyline, if you get the screen ratio correct, the player setting will allow the content to be displayed at the user's actual screen size. There's a whole thread dedicated to the mobile player size.
http://community.articulate.com/forums/p/14402/83901.aspx
Another reason I ask if you're wanting mobile ability is for design consideration. If you want this played on an iphone, as it is right now, the user would be seeing is an iphone basically within an iphone. Not a big deal just for an intro. Might reconsider if you were thinking of the whole course being framed inside an iphone. Also would be fine on an ipad. Just keep in mind that the screen size on a phone and a pad are not the same ratio. (pads are close to 4:3, phones are close to 4:2, the new iphone is closer to 4:1.5) For display purposes, I would limit the amount of time you use the iphone as a frame only because it will limit your content real-estate.
Hope this helps!
-Kevin
More good points.
I hadn't given thought to the phone inside the phone issue. I don't think it's as big a problem on the ipad but I may need to do a separate version for a smart phone anyway because of the reduced size.
Re-sized and added a few more frames.
I'm still trying to make some decisions on using the iphone background. For the sake of a portfolio piece, I don't want to go too small so might not do a version to be viewed on a smart phone. This version fit an ipad pretty well.
I still need to figure out rollover buttons.
Any additional thoughts? Thanks.
Sample2
"Finished" project. I decided to keep it larger for portfolio reasons.
Project
I'm still working on rollover buttons.
I wondered if anyone might have any idea of the value of such a project. I know it's small and fairly simple but I'm trying to learn to estimate time/value and would appreciate any ideas as far as the range of cost of doing this if given the content. Though I researched and produced the content for this, I'm thinking my first projects would likely be taking someone else's content and putting it into this kind of format.
Thanks.
I liked your final version BUT I was surprised by your figures of 30,000 deaths caused by texting while driving. Not living in the US I thought I'd better check before I commented and found this link quoting teenage deaths for driving in 2010.
http://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/teen_drivers/teendrivers_factsheet.html
Rather than quoting death rates related to texting, which I suspect are hard to come by, I wonder if it would be just as powerful to compare the effect of alcohol on driving skills and of texting on driving skills, and then draw the conclusion about likely death rates. I know your demo is about your skills in producing an interesting product but viewers might start querying your figures, rather than appreciating what you've produced.
Hope you don't mind my comments. I really liked your approach otherwise.
Hey Jeff,
Really liked the look and feel of the course. I was also impressed that you managed to keep it short enough to maintain interest without having to compromise on impact.
2 small suggestions from a learner's perspective.
1- As I think has already been mentioned, clickable stuff needs to look clickable. The next button isn't an issue because the arrow appears on it when you can click(visual indication that it is now clickable), but the statistics in the questions look very flat and you don't even get the 'hand' cursor. There are several ways to address this (if you choose to) such as using hover states, or putting the stats on buttons or using a brighter colour that is dedicated to clickable text alone.
2- Some of the slides auto transition whilst others don't. Because of the length of the course every word and phrase is important and I found that I accidentally missed pieces because I was momentarily distracted. I'd suggest making all the slides advance by user to ensure none of your message gets lost.
Very powerful course though. Well done, I think you've hit the target audience well.
Hi Jeff,
I enjoyed going through your project for teen driving in the US.
Well done!
How many hours did it take for this project?
Nicholas
Wow. I'm glad you replied. My stat was injury from crashes and not deaths in 2011. I added a "0".
A tricky part about this is that many accidents caused by texting while driving goes unreported where most which involve alcohol is. And I'm finding a lot of conflicting data. One says 11 teens dies every day while texting (4,015 a year) while another says 3,328 total for all ages. Some say talking doubles the risk for an accident while other 4 times.
Thanks for your feedback.
Love these suggestions. I need to learn how to do a hover state though I think I have the ability to change the cursor easily.
I struggled trying to decide whether to stop each slide or just delay it since the next slide often completed the sentence. I hadn't thought about the learner looking away so will rethink my current approach.
Thank you.
I really didn't tally the hours as I was working through a tutorial as I was doing it. I suspect, if I were to do it again, I could knock it out in 8-12 hour range. It got much faster towards the end.
If anyone was asked to do this project, any range for an estimate if the script was provided?
Hi Jeff,
Thanks for the reply. Practice helps reduce the time gap then.
Are you asking for a specific quote if you did the development work only in terms of US dollars or what?
You may want to PM someone for an answer as forum threads aren't always checked and older posts can become lost quickly.
Nicholas
Jeff,
This thread 'How much to charge for a course' might give you some answers to your question on the project estimate:
http://community.articulate.com/forums/p/1860/47471.aspx
Nicholas
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