Our Initial Project Process
What comes first when developing a custom eLearning project? At Living Children Multimedia we believe in strongly defined goals as the #1 priority in any custom project. Strong goals lead the user to desired destinations and are the foundation for a simple, user friendly (and memorable) experience.
1. Defining The Goal(s)
During our brainstorm sessions, the first order of business after a general project summary (from each client) is defining the project goals. The easiest way to waste money and time is to recreate, word for word a complex process and expect users to retain hundreds of separate topics worth of information.
When you decide on your finite list of goals, you will immediately see what you want and/or need each user to learn when they're done using the course or interaction.
Example of a goal: Users will complete the course with a basic understanding of the five largest ethics violations in our company, and how to resolve ethics issues with the Human Resources department.
2. Rough Project Outline
After any number of goals are decided upon, we begin the process of roughing out the idea, whether it's a story, straight forward interaction, character development, all in a loose atmosphere of anything goes. This is the area where defining decisions are made, and success or failure determined. That might sound a little over serious, but it's a good thing, as this is also one of the most inexpensive portions of development. Think of it as a pouring out of ideas onto paper. Text is cheap, and before any production begins we'll go through any number of concepts to further define the user experience.
3. Refining Goals and Listing Objectives
Once a rough idea is passed around and the project team agrees on the path they'd like to take, goals are narrowed down and refines, which leads to the more specific process of listing out objectives. As an analogy, think of a goal as the overall house, and an objective as each room in the house. When the user leaves, they'll definitely remember the house as a whole, and as an experience, and slightly less memorable (but very necessary to each project) might be each individual concept or objective (the rooms) inside the house. Drilling down even further would be the objects inside of each room, and we could continue on to a point where you're simply overloading your user with the expectation to memorize 50 different concepts in a 10 minute training course.
When you refine your goals and list out your objectives, it very similar to putting a cap on the size of your project, and building that strong foundation the user needs to remember what it was all about.
Example of refined goal: Students will learn the overall process involved with a dinosaur dig, with the hopes of instilling interest in Paleontology careers.
Example of objectives: Students and teachers will learn to utilize the “Digging Up Dinosaurs” web site, which will provide a basic understanding on various aspects of a dig and the professionals involved. This web site activity will teach students to:
- Learn the process of fossilization over time
- Learn how to carefully dig up fragile dinosaur bones and or artifacts
- Learn how to label the position/depth of each bone/artifact using a grid
- Learn about protecting the bones from breakage during transportation
- Learn about putting together the fossils for display in a museum
- Learn various vocabulary/glossary words and images
- Learn about the different professions involved in the dinosaur dig process
4. Flow Diagram
What we call flow diagramming can be referred to as many different things. Some may think of it as a text based story board, others may see it as a site map or visual aid, defining the branches of linear or non linear functionality of a project. Regardless, a flow diagram is an excellent way to test out a project's concept before major work on production begins.
An average user, whether kids or adults, can fairly easily grasp the concept of interaction by looking through the "If - And - Or" situations of a flow diagram. This is a great chance to get user feedback on the success of your goals, objectives, potential entertainment value and whether or not you feel the project flows successfully from start to finish.
5. Script Writing & Instructional Design
After the above steps are taken and rough content is approved, we begin the first major area of production, involving research, writing, editing and generally multiple rounds of revision before a final script is developed. This ends the initial project process.
6. Production
This is the part where everything comes together. Ideas become interactions, scripts become audio, and a rough to semi final project is created. From here on out as most issues have been resolved in the preliminary stages, the project is usually only a round or two of revisions away from becoming a final product.
There are many ways this process can go depending on whether or not you need to approve rough sketches or integrate an existing brand into an interface, but in general it's a straight forward process.
7. Revisions
There's no such thing as a custom project without revisions, and we work to make this an effortless process, aiming at a target two to three rounds of revision before final sign-off.
8. Finalization & Delivery
Once a project is finalized & approved, the files are delivered and the project is wrapped up. We are also happy to deliver source files as well at no additional cost for those interested in backing up their investment.Ready to begin your next project with us? Call 1.502.895.9214 or contact us.