My daughter and her friends enjoy making those annoying YouTube-style videos that feature improvisations, movie parodies, and music videos. I hate them—not my daughter (or even her friends) but the …
Typography and eLearning Development; Don’t Contribute to the Arial Cliché
When I think of ways I can improve my graphic design skills, typography is always at the top of the list (it has been for 17 years now). Since our …
Bologna Sandwich or New York Strip – What Would your Learners Prefer?
Forgive the food analogy. It’s nearing the lunch hour and I’ve spent most of my evenings this week watching the Food Network Star marathon. Let’s face it, without learner engagement …
Creating an Instructional Design Company that is Roaring with Creativity
At Allen, we are known and appreciated for our incredibly sound instructional design skills. We are also proud to have customers take a peek at our incredibly talented instructional designers. …
Building the Visual Aesthetic for eLearning Development
I’ve been thinking quite a bit about working memory lately. This likely stems from working on a project with dense financial and legal content—everyone’s favorite kind of course. We’ve whittled …
Representing Reality in Corporate Training
Make no mistake; your learners can spot generic stock art in training modules immediately. Generic stock art can make an otherwise custom, compelling training course seem dull and lack luster. …
Tips for Effective Communication Between Instructional Designers and Graphic Designers
Graphics are a powerful communication tool and a key element of successful training; so many instructional designers rely on graphic artists to add visual elements that will bring their content …
The 3 R’s of Visual Design: Rhetoric, Readability, Responsibility
The “3 Rs” (reading, [w]riting, and [a]rithmetic) have long been a shorthand way of identifying elements that seem fundamental to education. Coincidentally, there are 3 Rs that are fundamental to …
When Apples Go Bad – UI Design and Usability
Apple released the latest upgrade of their operating system (iOS5) a couple of weeks ago. This release gave us happy new features—notifications banner! to-do list! iMessage! multiple routes on maps!—as …