Training Industry Quarterly - Fall 2008 - (Page 15)
LEARNING TECHNOLOGIES | RICK J. CROWLEY THERE CAN BE SIGNIFICANT COSTS FROM DEPLOYING TECHNOLOGIES THAT DON’T SOLVE BUSINESS PROBLEMS AND CAUSE CONFUSION FOR THE LEARNER THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS OF THE LEARNER’S USER EXPERIENCE T here are many challenges for learning leaders who are working hard to deliver great value through learning technologies, but the learner’s user experience could be viewed as “the Holy Grail.” Many have invested time and effort to create the perfect user experience, but very few have actually struck the balance between the investment and delivering an experience that provides easy access to the content. Let’s explore the seven sins for designing and implementing an intuitive, user-friendly interface: 1. Lack of or No User Experience Competency: Everyone has an opinion on how the learning applications should work and many consider themselves experts since they are experienced Web users. However, people use kitchens and bathrooms daily but that does not make them experts in architecture or remodeling. Your own experiences may differ from the needs of mass audiences. 2. Pushing Technologies Without Knowing the Business Problem: Not all technologies are great investments for solving learning problems. In fact, there can be significant costs from deploying technologies that don’t solve business problems and cause confusion for the learner. Wikis are a good example: If not well-regulated, online documents that allow any or many to feed them could propagate bad information. 3. Deploying Technologies Without Standardizing Process: Deploying technology (for the sake of technology) without knowing what business problem is being addressed is one thing. But even if the technology makes sense, deploying it without defining a standard process is a mistake. 4. Leveraging Search as the Primary Way to Find Learning: There are countless methodologies for searches, but when all is added up, they fall short in helping learners answer questions. It is time to start putting more governance on the content and index it in such a way as to yield better answers. The systems are smart enough as long as the company manages a process that leads to one answer. Leveraging the way learning maps work can also help. 5. Spending Significant Budget on User Experiences for Learning: Why do people consistently spend money to personal- ize when they have no governance in place to define or target users by roles or needs? Why do people build learning management systems with multiple navigation bars and graphic images and all the other user-experience items that create white noise and cause confusion? Arguably the learning function’s money should be better spent on content. 6. Developing Applications that Require Training: This one happens every day in corporate life: The business wants to automate a process, IT builds an application and the application is so complex it requires training to use it. This flies in the face of good design. The learning function should help develop a process that engages all application design teams and prevents the need for training by designing intuitive process steps. Then training can really focus on the company’s core competencies to maintain competitive advantage and not churn resources through unnecessary or untimely training. 7. Focusing User Experience on Training: Finally, too many training organizations focus their experience to meet training needs. If the learning function is to solve the larger corporate learning problem, it needs to manage its technologies to support those as well. Summary The most important things a learning function can do is to build great content, define scalable and repeatable processes and provide a user experience for learners that does not get in the way of accessing the content and finding the answers to business questions. Therefore the CLO must define a strategy, make sure there are experts making the design and implementation decisions and balance the investment needed against the investment many may want to make. Rick J. Crowley is an active consultant on learning Technology and architecture. Prior to that Rick was senior director, learning systems, for NetApp University, a driving force behind Cisco's e-learning adoption and implementation and held the position of director of technology training for Oracle. Email Rick at rick_crowley@yahoo.com 15 Training Industry Quarterly, Fall 2008 / A Training Industry, Inc. ezine / www.trainingindustry.com/TIQ
http://www.trainingindustry.com/TIQ
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Training Industry Quarterly - Fall 2008
Training Industry Quarterly - Fall 2008
At the Editor's Desk
Contents
Ezine Email
Winning Organizations Through People
Before You Buy...
Learning Technologies
Informal Learning: Embracing Web 2.0
Leveraging Cutting-Edge Technologies for Learning
Reshaping the Learning Function to Think and Act Globally
The Importance and Growth of Customer Training
Meet Josh Blair
Meet Bob Dean
Meet Mark Myette
Training America's High-Flying Heroes
Closing Arguments
Training Industry Quarterly - Fall 2008
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_summer2024
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_spring2024
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_winter2024
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_fall2023
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_summer2023
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_spring2023
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_winter2023
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_fall2022
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_summer2022
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_spring2022
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_winter2022
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_20210910
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_20210708
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_20210506
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_20210304
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_20210102
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_20201112
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_20200910
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_20200708
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_20200506
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_20200304
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_20200102
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_20191112
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_20190910
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_20190708
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_20190506
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_20190304
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_20190102
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_20181112
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_20180910
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_20180708
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_20180506
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_20180304
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_20180102
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_20171112
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_20170910
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_20170708
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_20170506
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_20170304
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_20171112_se
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_20161112
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_2016fall
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_2016summer
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_2016sales
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_2016spring
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_2016winter
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_2015outsourcing
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_2015fall
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_2015summer
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_2015leadership
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_2015spring
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_2015winter
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_2014fall
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_2014summer
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_2014spring
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_2014winter
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_2013fall
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_2013summer
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_2013spring
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_2013winter
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_2012fall
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_2012summer
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_2012spring
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_2012winter
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_2011fall
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_2011summer
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_2011spring
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_2011winter
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_2010fall
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_2010summer
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_2010spring
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_2010winter
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_2009fall
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_2009summer
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_2009spring
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_2009winter
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_2008fall
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_2008summer
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_2008spring
https://www.nxtbookmedia.com