Increasing client collaboration using storyboards in ppt
Nov 30, 2011
I was recently at a conference and watched a presenation from a consultant who created power point templates of the engage interactions to send to clients for them to create content on directly. They then took those power point files and implimented them using articulate, made the recordings and completed the packaging so to speak.
Has anyone ever used an approach like this. It seems to be a gerat way to speed up the content approval process with a client if you are letting them 'design' right to the slides so to speak.
I know the argument would be, well why don't they just buy articulate and do the whole process themselves? My answer would be, most clients aren't learning professionals and don't understand the theory behind learning and implimenting that online. They can give a ton of content, we still have a huge consultation role in the implimentation.
i have attached a mock slide set to give you an idea of what I am talking about.
2 Replies
Hello Ari, that is an interesting idea . thank you for sharing it. I have tried something similar a time or two, by using Engage screencaptures of a Tabs Interaction on a PPT slide, kind of like the sample you attached. My situation might be different than yours, but in my case it ended up feeling like more work to both me and my sme to do it this way.
Let me explain why:
The couple of times I have tried an approach like this, I spent a lot of front-end time with my SMEs, explaining how to use the template. Even after carefully walking through the instructions for how to use it, my SMes got hung up on issues like "why can't I change the colors? these colors don't match what i want. Howcome when I play my slideshow the tab buttons don't work? Nothing happens when I click on them. There is a place to add a picture on my slide but what if i don't want a picture there? Howcome I can't move it or get rid of it? What if i want to include more than (x) Tabs on my interaction?I only see 3 in the template and can't add more. How do i change the title?" etc. etc. etc. ! So we ended up spinning our wheels so to speak, fussing with the template, when it probably would have been faster if i had just gathered their existing content (either from brief interviews or from whatever sources of info they had already) and then just created and published an Engage prototype myself. Then give them the published version to react to.
Also, usually in my situation, the course content already exists in some form, somewhere (although it is usually messy and poorly organized
... and my job (which I take very seriously! :) ) is to figure out the learning objectives, and take the existing content and transform it into something engaging and effective. This means first of all determining whether an Engage interaction is even the right venue (or not), and then reorganizing and reshaping the content accordingly.In the times when I have just given my stakeholders an empty template to type into, I seem to end up with a lot of junky content, because the SMEs just tend to REtype stuff that already exists elsewhere, and (I hope this doesn't sound too condescending) their decisions about how MUCH content they (re)type , and the wording and media they choose, often do not serve the learners very well. Because, as you mentioned, they are not learning professionals and they don't always understand what is going to be most effective for the learners.
SO! This ends up feeling frustrating to everyone, because the SME feels like they invested a lot of time entering the content into the template & trying to make it better, but then by the time I get it, it still needs a major overhaul anyway.
I hope all this doesn't sound elitist!! And I certainly do understand the desire to streamline developmetn time by bringing the SMEs in to do more of the work. But in my experience it has worked better and quicker to create the interactions myself, using content the SMEs have given me in other forms, or using info gained from brief SME interviews.
I would really love to hear what others have experienced, because if there is a way to do thigns faster I am all ears. :)
Thanks for sharing your experiences. I had actually considered that and when giving it to the client I have stressed that it is content template and not a features template.
they were planning to just make a hand drawn sketch, doodle things in, and then scan it and send it to me. I am hoping that at least having them work this way can cut some days off the conent approval cycle.
would be nice though if this was something artiuclate could jump in on and develop for us though. Even for this limited use
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