Designing training for Mobile App

We launched a mobile version of an enterprise work management application a year or two ago. Because the decision had been made to deploy iPads to the workforce, there was a desire to have training that reflected this environment. (The app also works on mobile phones, but most regular users would be using tablets, so we left that out of the main release.)

To simulate the environment, I built a module that was sized to replicate a tablet. The majority of users in the initial months of the deployment took the training on a desktop or laptop, but it appeared as if it were playing on a tablet. We did receive a good deal of positive feedback about this and would probably choose a similar path if we were given that project again.

One caution to know is that you are restricted to a single screen layout size; in other words, you can't run one story that has more than one screen layout (horizontal or vertical, 16x9 or 4x3). So for our project, I designed the module to replicate a vertical (portrait) oriented tablet. 

Then there were dozens of screenshots and interactions, of course, but that's part of the work.

I would think you could easily take a similar approach and see if you could design a module that would either introduce users to the primary purposes of the software (what we did) and then walk them through what they will likely be doing with it (also what we did - one simple task). I would probably not suggest that you delve into what an advanced user would do; not only would they likely be able to figure it out anyway, it would be a much more limited use case, in my view.

Hope this helps!