Being CR*P at Instructional Design

I took a recommendation from the Articulate Forums, and bought a copy of “The Non-Designer’s Design Book” – Robin Williams. A GREAT purchase. FANTASTIC ideas for creators of eLearning, which relies on visuals as well as content.

While she apologises for the resulting acronym, it works well for the design principles the book explains.

C – Contrast

R – Repetition

A – Alignment

P – Proximity

It occurred to me that these 4 factors could also be used, albeit slightly differently, for a simple eLearning course instructional design model, (I make no apologies about stealing the idea!)

Contrast – This is very much akin to principles suggested by Cathy Moore.

Contrast current to future/desired situations.

Contrast current procedures to future/planned procedures.

Contrast current performance to future/desired performance.

Contrast current product or service features and functionality to future/Roadmap features and functionality

Contrast current financial performance by sector to………..you get the point

Repetition – repeat the learning points. Keep repeating the message or messages. This can be done on a macro scale (maybe using a “slogan” that repeats in a footer. There are many possible ways to do this – perhaps a semi-transparent graphic repeated as the background on every page of a section. Use different words and phrases to say the same thing. Repeat the learning objectives.

Alignment – if creating corporate eLearning, make sure that your course aligns to business requirements. At the start, explain the relevance of the course to a current business strategy your customer is following, or the Annual Targets etc. This helps make the course “real” for people, and reality facilitates internalisation and memory.

Proximity – this harks back to something I have mentioned before, making learning appropriate for different audiences. The learning material/content has to be “close to their hearts”. Your audience need to recognise scenarios, they need to feel, or think, or say “Ah yes – that happened to me last week”, or “I saw that!”, or “That’s GREAT – because I know I have to do that tomorrow”. Proximity of learning  to activity can assist retention.

I’m not saying that this is a perfect design model, (is there one?); however, it is memorable, and workable.

And is certainly is CR*P.