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6 Useful Tips for Designing on a Budget
While some instructional designers are fortunate to work forcompanies with robust budgets, many are not so blessed. Industry expert JaneBozarth recently interviewed several L&D practitioners about the challengesthey face when working within tight budgetary constraints.
“Working on a small budget, at least initially, isn’t alwaysa bad thing,” Bozarth writes in a Guild Research report titled eLearningon a Shoestring. “Those who choose to see it as an opportunitywill likely find that the challenge helps them become more resourceful,supports development of business acumen, and leads them to better focus onstrategizing and negotiating desired outcomes.”
Here, from the report, are six useful tips for designing ona budget.
1. Don’t let anything go to waste
Tracy Parish works as an instructional designer, developer,and LMS administrator at a large hospital near Toronto. She must deliver astream of training materials for a large and diverse audience. She requires awide assortment of health-related images in order to do her job, but lacksaccess to licensed audio or photos, and does not have a graphic designer to createvisual assets for her. When she finds a free or inexpensive image that she canuse, she recommends making the most of it.
“When I’m looking at an image I’m not just thinking, ‘OK,here’s a nurse beside a patient in a bed,’ but seeing what else is in thatimage. What’s on the wall? What’s in the room? Maybe I can crop this down toget just the image of that IV pole. Maybe there are five things in that photothat I can use,” she says.
2. Embrace your inner photographer
If you need graphic images but cannot afford to buy them, takematters into your own hands. Today’s cellphones, tablets, and even laptops tendto have excellent built-in cameras. Even if you are not an expert photographer,you can probably get shots that will be decent enough for many eLearning projects.To avoid any potential legal snafus, don’t include peoples’ faces and use aphoto editing tool to blur identifying logos or signage.
3: Mix and match programs
Many smaller organizations cannot justify the cost of afancy authoring package. If you are an eLearning designer stuck in this predicament,mix and match low-cost products to get the results you desire.
For example: One can successfully create an instructionalcourse in a program such as PowerPoint, which isn’t free but is often astandard installation on many workplace systems. Bianca Woods, an instructionaltechnologist who is now a senior programming manager with The eLearning Guild, applaudsthe versatility of the program. She notes that she often leveraged the tool in aprevious position as an L&D team member at a global bank. PowerPoint boastsmany features that allow designers to create videos, animations, and othervisual effects that can make their courses more engaging. Woods points out thatwork can be saved as a PDF file and uploaded, without anyone even knowing aboutits PowerPoint origins.
4: Take advantage of introductory offers
Many authoring programs and graphic tools offer introductorysubscriptions that allow users to sample their products for a month, orsometimes more. Parish knows some designers working on shoestring budgets that willsave up all their audio or visual work, and then sign up for introductory trialsthat allow them to make the modifications they need on certain projects,without shelling out big money for subscription licenses.
One caveat: You can lose access to your files when the termof the trial subscription ends. If you have no intention of purchasing alicense for the program, make sure to convert or save your project while youstill have the opportunity to do so.
5: Leverage tutorials
Keeping one’s skills up to date in today’s fast-movingeconomy is crucial, yet continuing education can be costly. Some organizationswill pay for their L&D team to pursue supplementary training, while othersdo not offer support for such expenditures. Instructional designers working forfirms in the latter category must find alternative solutions.
Tutorials and podcasts are a low-cost way to acquireknowledge and brush up on skills. SearchYouTube for useful or relevant videos. Find podcasts on iTunes or throughapps such as Overcast, PodcastOne or Podcastrepublic. Many will suggestpodcasts based upon your interests and listening history.
