Let's talk Job Aids
Aug 27, 2012
Ah, job aids. I have a love hate relationship with them.
On the one hand, they allow my learners to download a reference guide that they can use while they perform tasks on the job. At my company, people print these things out and put them in a reference binder. They hang them on their cube walls. In short, job aids go hand in hand with eLearning here.
So here's the tricky part. We've got a huge implementation coming up and are expecting to need to create up to 100 of these things. Our current format is quite intricate- we use PowerPoint to make them (see screenshot).
My question is this: Does anyone out there have a reliable and (hopefully faster) way to create decent looking job aids? Preferrably, something using the screens that storyline is already capturing as a part of the recording would be great. How do you create job aids at your company?
11 Replies
Hi Heidi,
Thanks for the reply!
- We typically capture screenshots using Techsmith Snagit, because it's so quick when it comes to cropping!
- The entire document is created in PowerPoint
- I've switched exclusively to StoryLine now, but still have the Presenter suite.
- It really depends how intricate the task is and if I need to work with an SME or not. But, I'd say about 2 hours per jobaid
- We assume a low experience level with the software/environment unless the project specifies otherwise. Usually low.
- The green text items are not hyperlinks.
At our company, we assume a job aid is something pdf-based that can be printed or read onscreen. If it's a video, we'd call that an eLearning or a screencast. We're trying to come up with a common template AND process for producing job aids more quickly. As you can see, we have a template that is repeatable, but is not fast.My guess would be the green items are jsut fields/box titles within the program being taught, not live links.
If that's the case, I might offer the following ideas...
To be clear... your versions look great. Really nice. But I can imagine that being all free-form as they are it would be quite an undertaking to create 100 of them. Hopefully the two suggestions above will allow you create something workable (perhaps not as pretty) in much shorter time.
Bob
EDIT: Crossed post! I see you are using SnagIT, cool. Maybe limit the grabs to just the detail items that can't be easily explained in text.
Not sure about what your custom software is being built in. But you might consider creating some "help" files that are generated from the code.
Here is information if your programmers are using something like Visual Studio to build the software:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms670169(v=vs.85).aspx
@Bob Thanks, yeah. Snagit is crucial for being able to quickly grab the screens. I second Heidi's request to describe the infomapping in more detail!
@April Most of it is PeopleSoft (Oracle), some home grown apps for peoplesoft as well as other plugins, Sharepoint Sites, etc. I don't think anyone on our learning team has the knowhow to do Visual Studio stuff, but I'll look into it. Thanks!
@Heidi I'm not sure what you mean about Markers in Storyline. So to be clear- you've just added the built in makers in Storyline and then published to word? That could definitely help speed some things up and reduce the need for cropping. I think the less steps we have to do between recording the screen capture and outputting the job aid, the better!
Hi Heidi- this is definitely helpful and a great model to adapt for scaling up job aid production. Since we're also using Storyline to record the interactions for the eLearning course, we could even let it do the screen shots automatically. Thanks for making the video
The main thing to remember is to limit the amount of information on one page. Not doing so will only confuse the learner and make your jobs aids more of a hindrance which is the opposite of helpful. People do not like to dig for information and the easier it is to find, the happier they are.
Check out this other conversation.
We try to create one-page (double-sided) job aids. All of our job aids are created in Microsoft Word, which makes editing very fast and simple. We have found the screenshot capture tool in Office 2010 works great. We also use PicPick for screen captures (and I love the Color Picker tool). Here is a sample of one of our job aids:
Requisition Approver Job Aid
Ethan and Heidi,
Infomapping is a technique and format for writing business docs. Especially useful for things like procedures. Not sure who first fomalized the method, but there is a company of the same name selling software (Word plug-in) that has macros to create the format(s).
In any case... the folks at Infomapping are huge fans of Step Action charts and use nested tables within tables to create them fast fast. And of course you can drop a small screen shot into the table where needed as well.
Bob
Heidi,
The time to produce can vary. Typically, we have already created the training manual, so we are just summarizing what has already been documented. We can generally create a rough draft in an hour or two and then we pass it on to our SME for review.
Job-aids, using or creating are fun. I like the information mapping method of job-aid creation. You can get a good primer at http://www.namahn.com/resources/documents/note-IM.pdf.
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