‘Let’s keep it simple’
I recently finished up a design for a client who’s needs lead me to make a design choice I never would have expected.
He enlisted me to help him update his sales training offering and make it teleconference-ready.
He wanted to deliver a new version of his training that relies less on his series of facilitated sessions, and extend the learning between sessions with reinforcement activities for learners to complete on their own, while also priming their learning for the upcoming session with some light reading.
But — here’s the rub — being a one-man trainer-for-hire, he doesn’t have capacity for the overhead or admin that a technology solution would require — “I’d like to keep it simple.” Roger that.
Toolchest Triage
Okay, so let’s see: 🤔
- I needed a versatile tool that can present information in design-rich ways, and also allow users to input data but require no platform overhead or admin.
- Something “simple” that absolutely every one of our learners is certain to have easy access to.
Well, with those requirements, there was really only two options I could think of:
- form-fillable PDFs, or
- Microsoft Word
Portable Document File Probably Doesn’t Fly
The PDF option was my first choice, but as I looked at it in more detail problems presented themselves; I didn’t want to limit the scope of the content the learners might be able to create in the activity assignment. And as I looked into creating PDFs that would accomodate large content entry, the solution seemed unclear.
Sure, Adobe’s LiveCycle / Experience Manager Forms was an option. But it looked like a real yak-shave to author. And, in my experience, the reliability of PDF as a format really drops off when you start tinkering with its core spec. (Not to mention that anytime Adobe becomes part of the solution it’s usually the opposite of keeping it simple!)
And of course, the skills for learners to annotate PDFs is not as universal as we’d probably hope!
Sorry PDF — you’re out.
Word up?
Okay, but really — Microsoft Word?
Let’s see — every learner is almost certain to have access and basics skills with it. So that’s a huge tick.
Word can of course display content of almost any design, and a document can obviously have sections for input, and grow naturally within its file spec as content is added. Sooo…maybe it’s right in this instance?
But it’s Word! And I’m a rotten Apple snob. The quality of design matters and Word documents – are just…ugly, right?!? And besides, how could I be certain that the designs would display properly on a Windows machine.
Check your ego, son and design something!
Okay, Joel — get over yourself. Yes, design matters, but utility is most important. And, besides it is actually possible to design good looking documents in Word. So pull your head in!
Fair enough. Apple snob moment over.
So, the solution looks like this:
- Select a platform-universal font like Calibri (🙄 – hey, it could be worse!)
- Design the workbooks in Pages on the Mac. (My Word skills are admittedly rudimentary.)
- Export for Word and check in Word for Mac. Make adjustments.
- Sync files to the new PC (that I bought exclusively for this purpose) and check in Word for Windows. Final adjustments. Done.
The Result – Spread the Word: Simple is Better
So that’s the solution we deployed:
- Before each of my client’s facilitated sessions we would send out the Word ‘workbook’ file that would:
- recap the previous session,
- deliver written assignment activities that could be completed directly in the document,
- present the foundations of the upcoming session’s content.
- Each facilitated session was delivered via Microsoft Teams. My client presented while I drove the slides and annotated the conversation visually via MindNode mind-mapping tool.
- Once all the facilitated sessions were completed we delivered learners a final ‘master’ PDF of all the content from the course that they could refer back to without having to sift through their Word workbooks.
Our post-training survey via TypeForm demonstrated some satisfactory success — learners felt very comfortable with the Word format, and appreciated having linkages between sessions to help support the development of their scaffold as they worked toward becoming skilful in sales.
So I was convinced: we’re often enamoured with the latest shiny L&D tools. But by embracing the simplest tool and deploying it with learning best practice we created a quality learning experience that felt comfortable and safe for our learners.
I’d be interested to hear your ideas on what tools you would have chosen, given the brief, or other instances where you’ve found simpler to be better.