Applying Meaning to Design Our brains seek to understand the big picture. We look for pattern relationships and meaning, and we can use this knowledge to help design better training. Understanding and applying Gestalt principles can help the learner absorb and enjoy the material. Gestalt means ‘the whole’ or ‘form’ and provides a theory on […]
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Design for All
The Importance of Accessibility One of the most frequent questions I receive when designing custom learning solutions for clients is a single sentence, usually expressed as a random comment or thrown in an email. “Can we make sure this is accessible?” Answering this question isn’t easy. Many of our clients have their own internal rules […]
Read MoreBeing Creative With Your Toolbox
Using Tools Differently for Different Projects Frequently when I share my screen during Zoom meetings, I get quite a reaction. The reaction isn’t about the amazing desktop background picture of me climbing Everest (Kidding! It’s just a stock image.); it’s from people who catch a glimpse of my email inbox. “Where’s everything?!” coworkers seem to […]
Read MoreDon’t Be Judged Poorly When It Comes to Your Learning Portal
Five Features Every Learning Portal Should Have At the beginning of the pandemic, I made the choice to enroll my first grader in our school district’s virtual academy. I thought, “Virtual learning, this is an aspect of my job — how hard could it be?” Ha! My son’s courses are provided through vendors,each with a […]
Read MoreDesigning for Our Future
Three UX Design basics to remember After reading Tom Petro’s blog, Are We In This Virtually Forever?, I started thinking further into the future than I had in months. As Tom pointed out, almost everything that could be moved to an online platform has moved. A lot of industries and schools are now remote, movie […]
Read MoreThe Art of Recycling Animation
Five Considerations to Building an Animation Library In case you weren’t already in the know, animation takes a lot of time. A few seconds worth of high quality animation can take days, entire scenes take months, and the films Disney and Dreamworks release take several years and hundreds of artists! With that in mind, the […]
Read MoreThe Powerful Tool Called Color
Color Has A Big Impact On Learners Color is an extremely powerful tool. It can affect your mood, well-being, thoughts, and motivation. Research suggests that different colors play a role in cognitive functions. For example, researchers at the University of Linz in Austria demonstrated that the color red significantly decreases cognitive functioning in men. And […]
Read MoreDesigning Under Pressure
Four Tips For Busting Stress Everyone goes through bouts of stress. Whether it‘s finances, physical health, tight work deadlines, picking up your kids from school, or simply choosing the right “stressful” examples for your blog post, we all experience it on a daily basis. Stress can be very relative too; what might be majorly stressful […]
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