Forum Discussion
Job-Aid Design: Tips, Tricks, What to Include, How to Format?
Hello helpful instructional design & training peeps,
I've been working on designing a few job-aids lately and I was looking at templates and ideas for how to format it online when I thought... why not check with the best training community there is!
Does anyone have any tips, tricks, or best practices for creating job-aids? What do you include in your job-aid? How do you format it? What advice would you give someone who's about to create their first job-aid?
Love to hear your ideas and feedback on this...
Thanks in advance!
31 Replies
Not really a specific suggestion, but it always helps me to try to imagine myself as a frustrated user of whatever the job-aid is being created for. What would make me happy to see? What would get in the way? Should it be step-by-step, or a list of helpful items?
I really imagine myself seeing the job-aid, and what I would be looking for. That helps me to avoid the trap of a pre-defined template that might be easier to create, but may not quite be the thing the end user will find most helpful.
Then, make it blue. Blue always works.
Best resource (IMO) to break it down to essential actions and support resources is Cathy Moore's Action Mapping: http://blog.cathy-moore.com/action-mapping-a-visual-approach-to-training-design/
After going through Cathy's process, look at context, and format carefully. A user at a desk with a computer may have access to multimedia or clickable links to unveil each layer of information as it's needed, with progressive depths of information.
A user in a fire with a fire extinguisher needs a sticker on the side that can be understood in under 5 seconds.
So after Cathy's process, I find context/format (the function) to drive the best choices for form.
If David didn't post it, I was going to.
Are you creating a Just in Time job aid, or something more complex. If you were in need of the job aid, what do you need to know??
Depending on what the job aid is to be used for, I might suggest an infographic.
Hi Nicole,
This is a great discussion. I recently had to develop some for regulatory compliance at a call center. As everything else we do, I started with the business need. Our business need was for agents to be completely aware of Medicare regulations regarding a customer's right to an appeal. I used PowerPoint in a portrait layout to build the attached job aid. It seemed to work well along with dedicated coaching from supervising staff. In terms of formatting, I always picture a job aid to have a START and STOP point.
Ooh, nice example, Alexander! Thanks for including that,it's always soooo helpful to see real-life examples. A picture of a job-aid is worth a thousand words! haha
I'm happy to help Nicole, anything you need ; )
Thank you so much! Have been struggling to create a job aid for two weeks and I needed to see something new.
Would love to preview the PDF, the link has expired.
I think the most important thing for these kind of learning interventions is familiarity. What I mean is you should get in the learner's space. What is their workflow? How do they use systems? What interferences do they have? What are the typical periods during the workday that they take breaks? For how much time?
Once you know the environment, the job aide should just come to you.
A lot of really fabulous tips here... thanks for everyone's insights... some of the top tips I think I'm pulling from this are...
- Put yourself in the learners shoes and consider what they need/want on the job
- Understanding work environment, business requirements, and the context is key to ensure the job-aid is usable in a real-life situation
- Consider creating an infographic or something more visual
These are awesome tips so far! You guys rock :)
Hi Nicole:
David's link to Cathy Moore's Site led me to her Twitter Feed, where I found this:
Guy Wallace's blog post is a little on the thin side, but he does make one or two interesting points about Job Aids and who should/how to go about building them. ;)
I think everyone has said this already... but functionality is a huge driver of the design of the job aid. Is this job aid a procedural reminder or call to action? Is it a reference document?
If it's a procedural reminder, then I try to go with a simple statement that sums up the objective. Any additional words, graphics, or images should direct the learner to the statement. For example, if the message is "Verify Every Call!" I might design an aid that explains the repercussions of failing to properly verify a caller. The options are pretty open with this one.
If it's a reference document, I'm focusing on usability and convenience more than attractive design. In this case, a simple word document with a neatly designed chart will do.
I have made design and content reasons based on page size too. If it's an aid that will be kept at an agents desk, I do whatever I can to neatly fit the information on a one-sided 8.5 x 11 page. Employees here will do better with a simple one page reference document taped up on their cubicle than they will a detailed three page document that they have to flip through.
Ultimately, I'm trying to make it as easy as possible for our employees to make a correct decision or follow the proper procedure. I want to do that in the least amount of clicks/page turns/sentences possible
Preston:
I LOVE this idea/insight. If I were building a Job-Aid, the first thing I'd be looking to do is to see how many of these concepts I might work into this.
Example Ideas (personal "light-bulbs" from this Insight):
- Use an Infographic(s) either at the center OR periphery of my Print-Out or Job-Aid Slide, and then add thought balloons, captions, or other Post-It-Notes-like elements around it.
- Use a flowchart approach along with a combination of select text and graphics visuals to overview, evaluate, or underscore the desired learning process(es) that Job Aid supports.
I guess the most obvious question(s) that comes out from this is:
"What exactly IS a Job Aid?"
and
"How far should a/how detailed should a... particular Job Aid go/be?"
Great advice! I wish I could keep my job aid to under one page, but this will be multiple for using a software. I'm hoping to make it come to life!
Jessie:
I've done a lot of work with (and advocating for) job aids. One thing that's helpful, I think, is to see both job aids and training-to-memory (which is really "learning," but makes a better contrast in this case) as paths to a larger goal: someone able to accomplish some task. These aren't the only ways, but maybe the prime ones when information is involved.So, if people have to accomplish this cluster of tasks related to the inventory system, there are probably some terms and concepts they need to learn (store in their heads so they can retrieve in appropriate situations), like lead time or safety stock or minimum order. And there are probably several tasks they'll carry out every day, so learning makes senses for requesting inventory status, reviewing current orders, recognizing shortages, whatever. (We might use job aid formats to help people learn the process and practice these in training, but these job aids are more like training wheels, and we intend that people won't need them for long.
Other task are infrequent, or have many steps, or have high consequence for error, or have other features that argue for using job aids.The key point there is that it's not the size of the task, nor the size of the job aid: if it takes 57 steps to optimize the widget former, that's how many steps it takes, and you could end up with a large job aid, or perhaps a set of six job aids (one for each major stage of the widget optimization process).
Because of who its customers are, IKEA's manual for assembling its Galant desk is 40 pages long -- not that you need all 40 for the desk you bought, but because that's what they needed to cover all the different combinations for the desk. I wrote about that here: https://www.ensampler.com/archives/813
Ok, so this is not so much related to the format of the job aid, but one think I can add is that it's also extermely important where and how easily users can find the job aids. I've seen dozens of projects with great job aids not adding much value because users don't where to look.
