Here’s another alternative to the Next button: fast-paced interactive conversations from the makers of “You Don’t Know Jack.”
In a comment on the elearning samples page, MM pointed to these examples by Jellyvision. Wow. Quick, lively, occasionally snarky, and always richly human. As Jellyvision says, “It’s conversation rather than presentation.”
What can we learn from them?
The interactives are designed for marketing, which reminds me to make one of my favorite points: Elearning should steal ideas from marketing. Go to Jellyvision and steal right now.
Try any demo to see how the interaction works. To see explanatory sections, try the Autodesk demo and ask some questions.
Here’s what I came home with:
1. Speed up the pacing–a lot. Slow pacing doesn’t make our message clear. It makes our message bland. The Jellyvision narration and visuals are quick without feeling rushed. There are no slow dissolves–everything zips into place and snaps to attention.
2. Write a lively, conversational script. If our learners are reasonably fluent in English, let’s talk to them as if we’re actually talking to them. For global audiences…well, that’s a different story. Start saving up for localization.
3. Use professional character actors or at least someone who can use a lively, conversational tone. The “character” part makes all the difference.
4. Use humor to strengthen the bond. The Jellyvision characters use wit to show that they understand your situation, including your possible discomfort talking with a computer.
5. Consider using a conversation instead of a presentation. If we keep the branching reasonable, this shouldn’t be too horrendous. Even PowerPoint lets you set up branching. This approach might be most effective to determine how much a learner already knows (or what misconceptions they have) and to provide quick clarifications.
I’d write more, but I have to perk up a blah Flash that I created in those dark days Before Jellyvision.
What ideas did you get?
Awesome write up Cathy! Yes, definitely inspired!! Here’s to upping the bar of interaction.
That’s pretty crazy.. eye opening to how a simple concept can be redesigned/implemented in a lot of situations and end up successful. And they’ve made a business out of it!
My biggest problem is convincing a big client that that’s the way to go.. It’s odd cause my most successful projects (based on number of visitors and user feedback) are the ones where I’m in complete control of content, pacing, humor, etc. But on the projects where SME’s and 10 layers of middle management are in charge, we end up with fairly straight forward text-a-thons, regurgitating user manuals and all that fun stuff.
Also, creativity comes at a cost… A fully original idea/creative & interactive concept might cost almost 6 times the amount a standard slide based/text and audio course would.. but I suppose anything could be templated if you do enough of it.
Some things I take away from this are good though.. hiring an engaging VO actor pretty much costs the same as a drab boring VO actor, and… speed things up! I really had fun going through their examples… Loading was fast, VO actor talked at a conversational pace, and there was always something for me to do & click on.
Thanks for your time everyone, you’ve been great.. I’m drinking waaaay too much coffee this morning.
Eric, I’ve had the same experience with clients. It’s great to end up on a project that has a clear leader who lets the outside firm do what we supposedly do best. Unfortunately, what sometimes happens is that everyone at the client firm is in charge and the outside firm is reduced to taking orders–often conflicting orders.
I’m not sure I’d say that creativity is expensive. A 100% original Flash with high production values isn’t cheap, but the creativity itself doesn’t necessarily have a high price tag. What it needs is a little more time. Before you can start designing the thing, you have stare at a wall or scribble on a whiteboard or bounce on a mini-trampoline to a blaring Bollywood beat (my preferred technique).
Hi Cathy,
I was just trolling through some back issues of your blog to get some new ideas and came across this one. I thought I’d share my take on this.
The Jellyvision approach swept through my company a couple of years ago and we tried to incorporate the style in many of our courses. One method that I’ve really managed to use effectively was incorporating Jellyvision-style questions and feedback into my courses—and now I’ve created entire courses with only questions and feedback.
I use the feedback to subtly teach the learners and bring them around to the required point of view. This is especially effective for soft-skill courses. I generally avoid any actual branching completely (and therefore the extra development costs) but customize the feedback for each option so we’re responding to the learner’s choice and then leading them along the path I want them to take… and therefore the next question.
For example, in a course I created for financial agents, I used the following question:
What time would you get into office?
A. Just in time for my first appointment
B. In time for the first task on my day’s schedule
C. Early in the morning—the same time I get in every day
Response A:
Starting your day off with a bang, huh? At least you make your appointment on time! However, many experienced producers have discovered that it takes a bit of time, and effort, to get into the work mindset at the start of the day. So you should work that into your daily schedule as well.
Response B:
It’s great that you schedule your day, and plan your time around your schedule. If you are conscientious about sticking to your schedule, you’re on your way to success!
There’s another point that you might also want to keep in mind. Many experienced producers have discovered that it takes a bit of time, and effort, to get into the work mindset at the start of the day. So, you should work that into your daily schedule as well.
Response C:
It’s great to start your day at a regular time. That gives you the time to get into the work mindset before you start off with the first task, or the first appointment, of the day.
…and so on.
The course was completely audio-based and we also used very fast-paced visuals (cutouts of images and onscreen text that appeared and disappeared very dynamically) and a fun interface and background to really get into the feel of the course. And, even if I say so myself, it was quite a resounding success
Lisa, thanks for your inspiring success story. It’s great to hear that (1) a client let you try this and (2) it worked! I think even “normal” courses could use questions and feedback a lot more often than seems to be typical. Questions like the ones you describe involve the learner a lot more than the usual “tell” approach while still getting the point across.
Hi Cathy,
Great article.
Just wanted to point out that the link to Jelly Vision is broken. The updated link is – http://www.jellyvisionlab.com/examples.php
I was curious so I went to their web site to find it
- Vanshika
Vanshika, thanks for posting the updated link. I’ve fixed the original post.