I’mlucky to get to speak in London every now and again. AsI’m usually staying in whatever part of town is closest to the particularevent, I am often in an unfamiliar area. On my lasttrip I heard my hotel was near Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre and asked the front-deskclerk for directions.
Shewhipped out a paper map. She whipped out a pen. She started to draw Xs andcircles and lines. She said: “You can go here, take the first left, turnright.”
Thenshe said: “Or you could go this way. It’s a little longer but go left, turnright, and watch for signs.” She drew on the map some more. She pointed out thewindow. She verified with a coworker.
I wentoutside, map in hand, and three minutes later when I arrived at the Globe—aftera roundabout detour around an apartment complex she hadn’t mentioned—Iwondered: “Why didn’t she just say, “Walk to the river and turn left. You can’tmiss it”? Really? She didn’tmention the Thames?
Lesson learned: Look it up myself.
Go to Wichita Falls or on foot and turn left
The thing is, we aren’t most of us very good atgiving directions. Rather like many of us aren’t good at telling jokes, we oftenput in too much irrelevant detail and leave out something important. My husband(bless his heart, as we say in the South) uses landmarks that no longer exist,like a local mall that was demolished 12 years ago. My dad (bless his heart,too) helped build a lot of local roads. He remembered crossroad names and roadnumbers and used them the way the rest of us use street names (“Take 1407 up toPumpkin Center and then cross over to 1326.”). He was right, but it was in alanguage I didn’t speak.
Most of us, especially on the spur of the moment, gettangled up in our own view of the thing and forget steps and need to backtrackin our explanations. In a train-the-trainer course I run—the only classroomprogram I still teach—everyone has an assignment to break the participants intogroups into threes or fours or fives. They can’t believe this is an assignment,but even with a week’s notice and a sheet with instructions few can do it onthe first try. They get tangled up in the numbers, and can’t remember if theywere asking for four groups of five or five groups of four, and they can’t seemto stop talking. It’s a great setup for discussing ways to give clearinstructions.
What does this have to do with eLearning?
Sometimes in designing eLearning another thinghappens: we get so caught up in the “look and feel” and aesthetics that we missthe obvious. And sometimes we make it so hard for learners to learn, it’s nowonder they circumvent us.
When have you seen:
- Explanationsof course navigation more complicated than the actual course content?
- Programs thatincluded more about the history of the lobster-eating policy than actualinstructions for eating the lobster?
- Directionsthat did not make clear what the learner was supposed to do?
- Instructionsthat obviously made sense to the writer but often not to the end user (cough—acertain Swedish furniture store—cough).
- Online“help” guides that are anything but helpful.
And really, not to blame the learner, but I’mnotorious myself for skipping and skimming and having to search back to a placein the instructions that is often ridiculously hard to find. Writing betterinstructions—and making them easier to find—is going to be even more importantas we are increasingly charged with developing performance-support tools andjob aids, in a world where learners as often as not have learned to say, “I’lllook it up myself.”
The basic lessons here for those writinginstructions should be clear. Now there are new tools emerging that may makethis easier going. For example, lately I’ve been enamored of a new tool called Snapguide. It provides support and space for user-generated quickphoto or video tutorials on everything from cooking to bike repair totechnology use. Unlike YouTube, which is great but provides no structure forusers (see Nuts and Bolts: Be a Learner), Snapguide’s designer toolessentially teaches the teacher how to teach. Prompts at the first screen askwhat materials will be needed for the task. There is a limit to how muchcontent you can fit on a screen (now there’s something eLearningdesigners could learn from). The tool forces you to break up your instructionsinto distinct steps. It pushes hard for you to provide a visual.
Here’s an example: Using Music to Support Learning. There may still be some problems withforgetting to mention the river, but it helps to lessen some of the problemswith giving directions. It’s a start, anyway. I look forward to what the futureholds in the way of providing performance support for those who designperformance support.
So, the nuts and bolts of this? Remember: The instructionscan be as important as the instruction.
