Need feedback on 1st attempt of course. Do I need to start over?

Feb 21, 2013

First, this forum has been a lifesaver for someone new at this, so thanks for all the posts.

I am trying to create a new hire training course for my team. I've gotten a lot of slides and quiz questions written but still need to write the script and naration. The problem is, I feel my course isn't interactive enough and feels too much like powerpoint.. I feel like I need to completely start over; but not sure where to start or how to improve. Would greatly appreciate any feedback or suggestions. Rip this thing apart if you don't mind.

The course objective is to provide basic product knowledge for fine jewelry before an associate would start on the sales floor. I've removed some brand media so you could see pages that are missing pictures for this shared version.

Thanks for anyone willing to help guide me to get this to the next level.

Here is the link:

http://tempshare.storyline.articulate.com/p17jus19fe1ors1gnfokv8d71t0h1/story.html

Darren

5 Replies
Tim Slade

Hi Darin,

It's interesting to see another retail course our there. I use to work for Kohl's Department Stores and Macy's...and worked on many projects like this.

In all honesty, the course looks really good thus far. I'd love to see how it sounds with audio. I think for the most part, there's a lot of areas where you have an abundance of text on the screen...remove that from the screen and make it your narration. You then can replace it with any stock photography you guys have. At Kohl's we'd go out to the stores and take a ton of photos that we could use in our courses...I'm sure you guys do the same thing.

Also, it looks like their is some significance for the use of red (I assume a branding color?) If that's the case, I can only think of two retails that use red heavily in their branding. Either way, I'm sure their is a ton of opportunity to incorporate other branding elements (a target or star for example...if your from either of the retailers I'm thinking of). See where you can expand upon the branding, imagry or fonts. Otherwise, I think your making great headway.

Also, by the way, great use of interactivity!

Feel free to messages me if you want to discuss any further ideas. Having a retail-eLearning background, I have a ton more ideas.

-Tim 

Daniel Brigham

Darian:

You are off to a good start. Adding the VO will help us make sense of exactly what is being communicated. Agree with Tim above--unless mandatory, get those big blocks of text off-screen (whittle them down, baby). And of course, don't have your VO read what's already on-screen.

Get it finished and test it on a few learners who will actually need to take it. They'll tell you what's what.

And maybe force yourself away from tab-like interactions for a bit. You got a lot of those. --Daniel

Nancy Woinoski

I like your course and don't mind the text. It's funny I used to be a big fan of voice narration for everything but lately have been moving away from it for these straight information type courses because people can read a lot faster than a narrator can speak.  But if you are going to add narration, I agree with Daniel about removing most of the text so that it does not compete with the narration. Just place key words or phrases on the screen and time them with the narration.

I noticed that you have locked down the navigation. Not a big fan of this and would remove it. 

Patti Bryant

Darren,

Great job on your first attempt at this course! You've got a lot of good elements thus far.

Here's generally where I would start: pull out of the content for a second and think about how to show this as realistic as possible. Example: What if the intro slide was an image of the jewelry area? The binder was sitting on the counter and the POS was in the shot. Learners can click the binder to access it (if you're including parts of it within the course). Learners could click on a ring or piece of jewelry and the "Feature" vs "Benefit" could apply to that specific piece of jewelry so it's more realistic and applicable. Make the test an interaction with a customer.  A customer could ask the learner about a specific piece of jewelry and depending on the answer the learner chooses to tell the customer, they buy it or don't. Let them make mistakes and see what happens (what would happen in real life - maybe the person buys it and then finds out that what they were told wasn't true and they come back).

On the first slide, it says "Click/Press on a course above to begin." I'm assuming this is done to compensate for computer vs touch screen devices. I would reword anything like that to say "Select a section to begin."

I hope this was helpful! 

Keepin' the joy,

Patti

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