Learn Design from Don Norman

Don Norman, author of the classic The Design of Everyday Things and my personal favorite,  Emotional Design: Why we Love (or Hate) Everyday Things (among many other books), has made his MOOC debut on Udacity.  You can now learn from a short and accessible intro to his ideas in the form of a free online course made up of videos,  reflection exercises, and design challenges...

Learn Strategies for Better Interface Design for Learning

Eminent eLearning Coach, Connie Malamed is also a master of graphic design in the eLearning context. I had the honor of being invited onto her podcast to talk about how interface designs impact learning. Her show is a gift to the industry offering a wealth of insight from experts in a broad range of areas.

In my interview, we cover the user interface, video, social learning and community building, how to cut cognitive load in graphics,  how to support visual perception effectively, and the surprising findings about emotions and learning.

Subscribe to her podcast or head direct to the episode 16: Strategies that Improve the Interface to Learning.

image source: WebIconSet.com

On Memory and the Life of Maps

There are so many childhood objects that leave indelible marks as one grows up, from the microscope that gives you a secret window into invisible worlds, to the medical kit which made you a superhero with the power to fix people.  In his articles, The gears from my childhood, renowned MIT professor and educational technologist, Seymour Papert, explains how playing with and loving gears gave him a conceptual model that lasted a lifetime.

Upon undertaking a mental hunt for influential childhood objects myself, I ended up in a kind of serenade to maps and memory.  Rote memorization is nearly tabooed in these days of Active Learning and Google access (and with good reason).  But what I learned from maps is that, perhaps, there's a modest place for it yet...

Paper still the cutting edge

Amid the carnival of EdTech excitement you'd be forgiven for forgetting that our digital technologies are still just tools, added to a bag of tricks that has accumulated over millenia.  Sure, there are some tools we'll probably never go back to (punch cards? slide rules?) but then there are the work horses that have survived for a reason, like pencil and paper.

Educational interface design researcher, Sharon Oviatt and colleagues presented a study ("Quiet Interfaces that Help Students Think") in which students working on math problems worked faster, remembered more, and made fewer errors on paper (regular and digital paper) than they did on tablet-based UIs.  The difference was most dramatic for low-performing students.  Some of their comments are telling...

10-year Survey of Online Education

A new report by the Babson Group and the College Board has tracked ten years of online education in the United States revealing that over a third of higher education students now take at least one of their courses online.  Most staff view MOOCs as more of a way to learn about online pedagogy than as a sustainable long-term mode of operation, and although online education is growing, higher drop-out rates in online courses remain a serious concern.  Full details at the survey site.

The Institute for the Future

If you haven't already, head to the Institute for the Future (IFTF). Their site abounds with projects and infographics of interest to eLearning Interface Designers.

For example, they have a project on The Magic of KidsTech which shares insights on unique applications of technology, such as mobile apps, for kids learning, health and wellbeing.

Reknowned game designer Jane McGonigal is an affiliate, and she explores how games can be designed to foster profound experiences that change people and improve the world (see Evoke)

The IFTF also has a project on the Future of Learning.
Check it out.

Connie Malamed - Visual Design and eLearning

If you don't know her work already, Connie Malamed, author of Visual Language for Designers combines expertise in both eLearning and Visual Design and as such, is a great source of knowledge for the eLearning Interface Designer.

Check out her high quality articles at E-learning Coach, some of which relate specifically to eLearning Interface Design.  For example...

• Using graphics to improve learning
• 5 ways to use graphics in eLearning Scenarios
• Realistic graphics and learning: What's most effective?
• How to create a visual hierarchy

She also gave a presentation on visual design for the eLearning Guild and it's available free to view.

UX for Learning - Design guidelines

UX for Learning - Design guidelines for the Learner Experience was just published in the online professional publication UX Matters. In the article I elaborate on a list of practical guidelines drawn from multimedia learning research.  Check it out.

eBook on graphic design for eLearning

The eLearning Guild has now released 62 Tips on Graphic Design, UI/UX Design, and Visualization for eLearning - the companion eBook to the upcoming online forum on this topic (to be held online on the 23-24 of August).  The eBook is free to download and contains tips provided by the forum presenters (of which I am one, so let bias be noted ;).

Experts call for more "Learning experience design"

Janet Kolodner at ICLS 2012

I was ecstatic in the audience of Pierre Dillenbourg's talk at last week's International Conference of the Learning Sciences when he made an open call for more work to be done on HCI for Education. Later, in an interactive poster session of innovative learning technology, ISLS society founder Janet Kolodner echoed agreement for this need, appropriately recasting it as "Learning Experience Design".  This triggered additional comments from the crowd on the unique role of graphical user interface design in the learning context.

The work Dillenbourg showcased was created by a multi-disciplinary team, and as a design solution to a problem they discovered through observation (not a technology-led approach). This narrative is utterly in tune with user experience design methods. Moreover the results, such as the lantern he showed (pictured here) were effective, elegant and appropriately minimalist - again, design thinking principles at work.

Lantern awareness tool

I'm inspired that even the research leaders at conferences like ICLS are beginning to articulate the need for a greater focus on user interface and experience design for learning.

I look forward to a new era that brings the fields of the learning sciences and user experience design together so that we can finally take a principled, research-based and human-centered approach to the design of user interfaces and experiences for learning.

Design for a wiser world

Rich learning experiences can help us grow in wisdom as well as in knowledge and capacity. While many are wringing their hands at the perceived negative effects of technology, Positive Computing opens the door to a future in which human-centred design evolves to a kind of humanity-centred design.  The Interactions feature article "Positive Computing: Technology for a wiser world" explores both a vision and point of practical departure for a future in which technology is actively designed to support wellbeing and wisdom.

View article.

Book: Designing for Learning Environments of the Future

The book of essays Designing for Learning Environments of the Future (edited by Jacobson and Reimann) is now freely available for reading online.  The book contains chapters by leaders in the field of the Learning Sciences and deals with topics like learning in virtual worlds, net-based teams, knowledge communities and inquiry-based learning.

Workshop / conference on educational interfaces

The third annual Workshop on Educational Interfaces, Software and technology, associated with CHI 2012, aims to combine "the pedagogical expertise of the cooperative learning, and learning sciences communities with the technical creativity of the CHI, UIST and interactive surface communities."

Held May 5-6, You may have just missed it this year, but the papers are now online, and keep your eye on this workshop, as they plan to make it a conference within two years.

Digital experiences for kids and teens

If you design digital experiences for kids or teenagers, you'll want to check out the recently released Oxford University Press title, Designing Digital Experiences for Positive Youth Development by Marina Umaschi Bers, PhD.  The book explores the notion of "Positive Technological Development" and looks at the potential of digital experiences to support positive development in youth.

"Based on over a decade and a half of research, Designing Digital Experiences for Positive Youth Development  aims to guide readers in the design of digital technologies to promote positive behaviors in children and teenagers. Highlighting the positive impact of new technologies in various domains across the developmental span, from early childhood to late adolescence, the book explores how young people are using technology today, how these experiences influence different age groups and domains, and how mastering technological literacy can lead to confidence, competence, and developmental growth."

Find out more about the book in Oxford's catalogue.

Online Forum on Visual Design for Learning!

This August, the ELearning Guild will focus one of their Online Forums on visual design for learning.  Graphic Design, UI Design and Visualization for eLearning will be held this August 23-24th and attendance is virtual (via Adobe Connect) so come as you are.  I have been invited to speak at the forum and will present:  "Guidelines for Effective learning Interfaces".  More information is available on the Elearning Guild Forums website.

Learning Environments for the 21st Century

Award winning classroom in Tokyo.
Credit: ScarletGreen 

"Learning environments for the 21st century",  chapter 2 in a new book on educational facilities released by the OECD gives you a few glimpses into the historical evolution of the classroom and looks at what education will need by way of learning space in the 21st century.  Although it's about physical space, author Christian Kühn makes some points that can help digital learning designers answer questions like: how do you design the ideal learning environment, when we don't really know what that is yet?

Learning in Virtual Worlds - 10 year review

Photo credit: Torley

What have we learned in the last ten years about learning in 3D virtual environments?   Are they worth the significant resources required to build them?  Do students learn better in them, and how do teachers feel about them?  Mikropoulos and Natsis conducted a review of the research over the last decade to help us find out.  Here is an informal summary of their findings...

Learning stages for User Experience Design

What a delighter to find my weekly helping of "A list Apart" this morning came topped with the title "UX for Learning".  A List Apart is an impeccably produced online publication from the makers of some of the industry's best websites and books on websites.  The latest post by Tyler Tate shows that  Learning is beginning to slide its foot in the door with a larger design audience.

Tate demonstrates how basic stages of learning can be applied to the design of everyday websites and links some practical examples of interface design decisions for commercial websites back to Kuhlthau’s stages of the search process.

In my view, it's not just a great indication of a growing awareness of how our knowledge about learning needs to converge with our knowledge about design, it's also evidence of how the Beatrice and Benedict of industry and academia are truly meant to be together in the end.  They don't always speak the same language, or think they share the same values,  but (at risk of infringing copyright on an Obama campaign) we must unite - we've so much to gain by sharing research, methods, processes, data and worldviews that why wouldn't we?  As Bob the builder would say "Yes we can."

Image details: Web interface for the Learning Sciences Conference I just designed for the International Society of the Learning Sciences.

Time management principle for design

Design is about details.  But then it's also about deadlines.  As such, I have developed this tenet to keep me focused...

"I vow to cultivate the discipline to not spend time on the details that don't matter, the patience to spend time on the details that do, and the professionalism to know the difference."

Thus today I will not double proofread my chats, or spend hours crafting email witticisms that only I will be impressed with, but I will do what it takes to get that alignment just right and not give up on my dizzying quest for proof of what works.

[Credit, of course, to Reinhold Niebuhr for the famous serenity original.]

Clark Quinn on Educational Games

Clark Quinn, author of Engaging Learning: designing e-learning simulation games recently gave a masterclass in Sydney.  He introduced categories of educational games, how they differ from scenarios and simulations, and made suggestions for how they can best be used for learning.

Although the information he shared is primarily for instructional designers of elearning, rather than for interface designers, the inevitable overlap meant there was much to be gained for an elearning visual designer like me.  Here is a taste of some of his key points...