Reference: Huhn, Jake. The Mobile Mindset: How to Wow Your Learners. Bottom Line Performance.
Huhn and BLP define a mobile mindset as designing for future adaptability, even if you aren’t delivering mobile training today. I am re-reading the PDF whitepaper referenced in the 2016 blog post linked above in preparation for my #LSCon preso on mobile ID tips. The premise of the whitepaper is that L&D is behind. I tend to agree. My team has had to go boldly into mobile for about 2 years. Some of our adaptability was switching from Flash to HTML5 for the coming Flash death. Some was switching the remote workforce to Axonify and device delivery. When we started, I couldn’t find much to help us. I found books about developing a mobile strategy, tips for org’s selecting devices, and device security. But not much on design. We figured things out through trial and error, looking at what news and marketing companies do on social media, and making some blunders. I have compiled those blunders and our ultimate successes for my #LScon preso.
Two challenges to a mobile mindset in L&D listed by Huhn are an old-fashioned LMS and limitations of authoring tools. YES! We experienced both. Moving to Axonify was a big help to us and really forced us to grow our mobile mindset. Articulate Rise and GoAnimate along with relearning how to frame a video were the other key changes we made.
We made the decision to not update our legacy content to full mobile. It has been updated from Flash to HTML5, but nothing was resized or redone to increase readability on a small screen. I made that decision to save the team’s sanity and keep our backlog from overflowing. We state in the description in the traditional LMS whether or not the module is mobile-friendly.
The audience is already a mobile workforce on a BYOD program so those hurdles and that cultural change happened in conjunction with our mobile mindset change, but not because of it. We were forced into a mobile mindset by the change to the workforce’s way of work going mobile.
The team has Huhn’s responsive web design down. Our authoring and delivering tools have all changed over the past 2 years. Huhn next discussed the need for design. Specifically, he mentions Gestalt Principles. I’ve been in two different TLDCasts of late that mention how a UX designer and Graphic Designer are becoming important to the L&D team. I totally see that! This is the area where we have the most opportunity for growth. Some of us have a great natural eye. Rise goes far to help those of us who do not.
Learning is facilitated if similar ideas are treated and linked together and then contrasted with opposing or complementary sets of ideas. — Huhn on Gestalt & learning
Huhn then lists 6 tips. I am grading me and my team on these!
- Space: we have grown a lot since our early days of making videos for 24″ monitors just displayed on small screens. We still have room to grow. This is the part where we have the most variations amongst team members.
- Modular: Axonify and Rise have really helped us change here. The team is learning to break topics down. The tools force us into responsive design.
- Tool: we are at the mercy of our tools. I don’t even know how to begin here.
- Website: company IP severely limits our ability to do anything on a website. No room for growth right now.
- Future thinking: yes! we are doing this well. Or as long as we are using Axonify.
- Training wheels: gone are the days that we explain buttons in the module. The GoAnimate modules don’t even have buttons! Our primary audience is savvy and we are good at treating them at way.
Seems like our average might be a B. We are handing off some of the work to our tools. Does that discount our successes?
Catch me presenting at Learning Solutions Conference at SDD104 and in the Ecosystem Showcase! March 26 & 27.
Christiana Learns 