Design ApproachesAdapting Content for mLearning

Intro

• Chad Udell

• Solutions Architect - Float Learning

• Blog at Visualrinse.com and FloatLearning.com

What we’re going to cover

• How to recognize how the user's context affects design of the content

• What constraints certain contexts place on content design and delivery

• How to effectively leverage your users' context to produce effective learning

The worst case scenario

What’s wrong with that?

• No concept of the user experience

• No curation

• No guide for decisions

• No context

A Primer on Context

• The Where, When and Why of Mobile

• Setting (Physical and Social)

• Time (Relative and Absolute)

• Intent (Reason for Access)

Setting

• Differences between at home and on the go

• At the office vs. at a client’s location

• How does this change what is important?

Time

• Relative Time

• Proximity to another event

• Absolute Time

• 11:32AM, Wednesday June 3rd, 2010

• Three days before New Year’s Day.

• 10PM Everyday

Intent

• What does the user really want at this juncture?

• Difficult to infer

• Use of device sensors and usage history

Placing something in Context changes everything!

Should have checked the context before traveling

The perfect mLearning device?

Contains some useful information, mostly about towels.

Lets you know when there are three armed men inside the building

Check the controls

How do we start?

Draft the Personas

What’s in a Persona?

• Demographics

• Goals

• Tasks

• Device Specifics

• Connectivity

• Tech Familiarity

• More?

Use them!A scene from a Yahoo! Session

Craft Use Caseshttp://www.alistapart.com/articles/tamingscope/

• System Aware

• Network Aware

• User Aware

Categories of Contextual Design

• Adapt to device-specific interaction techniques (Touch vs. Multitouch vs. Cursor vs. Terminal)

• Different display on different screens (resolution)

• Functionality specific to the delivery platform

System Aware

• Account for differences in network access and bandwidth - Wifi vs. 3/4G vs. EDGE

• Using local device storage when offline

Network Aware

• Inferrals of intent

• Personalize content based on usage history

• Integrate social data

• Provide varying levels of service and data access

User Aware

So, let’s try it out.

Scenario #1

• A Technophobe Sales Professional

• Needs access to current whitepapers and soft skills training

• May have long drives

• May not always have web access

• Likes Talk Radio

• Doesn’t mind calling homebase

• Has an older smartphone, not always sure how to use it

• Has an iPod

Scenario #2

• Manager(s) for a Construction company

• Needs quick info on the machine fleet

• Just got top of the line Android phones

• Wants an “app for that”

• Has dozens of permits and regulations to check the jobsite against

• Has some existing web apps they use, not sure about how they work on the mobile

Scenario #3

• Company has a large number of tech professionals on the road

• Needs up to the minute info on jobsite conditions

• No single type of phone

• Users have a large number of SKUs they have to know about

• Product bulletins come out weekly, sometimes daily

• A lot of employee turnover

The only chance for assuring a successful contextual advertising system is merging it with top social

networks like MySpace, Facebook, etc. where the system will better understand its users, their needs,

search habits, likes and dislikes, and serve them perfect ads – ads that they will click on.

http://www.mangeorge.com/2008/08/contextual-advertising/

In Summary

• 3 types of context

• These types require User Focused Design approach

• System, Network and User aware applications can all flow from these approaches

• User focused design works regardless of the technology

Questions?http://floatlearning.com/blog