Mobile Learning for Corporate Training

Versatile Mobile Learning

If you look around any public place, you can see just how addictive mobile devices have become.

You know you’re a mobile device addict if you spend more time texting, tweeting, or emailing than actually talking to physical people. If your cell phone is always part of the table place setting, you might be an addict. And, if your significant other gets jealous because you sleep with your smartphone, that’s a sure sign of addiction.

This epidemic may sound like a recipe for workplace distraction. But from a training point of view, our device addiction represents a huge opportunity. Mobile learning is a versatile and fast growing training space that is driving all sorts of innovation and customization.

What You Can Expect

Some clients come to us thinking mobile is just an eLearning course – just a setting when you go to publish. But as anyone who’s been to a terrible mobile website knows, it’s not that simple. The problem is that the content needs to be optimized for delivery on multiple types of devices with mobile browsers, Wi-Fi/cellular connections, and small screen sizes.

That’s why almost all websites these days have a desktop version and a mobile version. The owners of those sites know that the full featured version of their website runs like crap on mobile. There are loading issues. There are readability issues (requiring pinch-zoom to see tiny fonts). There are navigation issues like microscopic buttons and fat thumbs or taps and swipes versus clicks. And, that’s just for a casual browse.

Now say we’re leveraging people’s learning and productivity, you also have to optimize the format and experience. The whole point is to better the user’s learning experience on a small screen, not make them want to throw their device.

Whether used as part of a blended solution, or as an on-the-go eLearning course, mobile learning offers new possibilities in instructional design and shows promise in tackling age-old training issues like engagement and retention, since your learners are already cuckoo for cocoa puffs with their mobile devices.

Our Approach

If you come to ThinkingKap for help with mobile learning, the first question we’re going to ask is, “Why?” Not because we want to talk you out of mobile, but we want to know the business reasons you have identified and what you are trying to accomplish. While there are opportunities with mobile, there are also some limitations, so your answer to that question gives us insight into what success will look like at the end of your project.

Next, we need to know: “What type of device – or devices – are you going to deliver the training through?” and “What type of training experience are you trying to create?” Your answers to these questions help us begin to think about the best technical solution in terms of authoring tools.

Now it’s time to talk about learning objectives, content narratives, and instructional strategies. The most import difference between ILT, eLearning, and mobile learning is its duration. ILT is often measured in weeks and days, eLearning in hours, and mobile in minutes.

In order to succeed, like with all other forms of training, the structure and content must fit the medium. In the case of mobile learning, that calls for short bursts of content. Here are few really good reasons for using mobile learning.

As part of a blended learning to introduce, practice or reinforce content.
To provide just-in-time access to reference procedures or policies.
To push out change management rollout messages and training.
To push out time sensitive information.
To push out compliance training or refresher training.

Regardless of how you plan to fit mobile learning into your overall curriculum, we can help create a mobile solution to fit your needs.

Service in Action

We worked with a client who provided educational information to people who were facing foreclosure on their homes. Because this is such a highly stressful experience, this organization wanted a way to educate homeowners on the foreclosure process, orient them to the timeline of events, and inform them of their options along the way. Recognizing that foreclosure related topics can be confusing (and often filled with legalese) they needed the information to be as approachable as possible. Also, given that their client base ranged the entire spectrum of ethnic and socio-economic groups, they needed to ensure accessibility for all users.

Using Google Analytics, they determined that most visitors to their website did so on their phones, which is where they wanted to host this training piece. So, it was determined that designing this module for the mobile environment made the most sense.

We helped them distill the entire foreclosure process down into a scenario timeline, where users helped “Joe” make decisions during his foreclosure process.

Information was presented along a timeline so users could understand what the steps were in the process, what the timing was between steps, and what impact Joe’s decisions had on the rest of the process.

Everything was strategically designed to operate within a mobile environment: a large and clean interface, intuitive progression between steps, a graphic and text based presentation that didn’t rely on narration, and a streamlined presentation of legal-based information that was digestible through small screens.

Diverse Clients, Unique Training Solutions

We work with a very diverse customer base, and it turns out most users access our materials from their phones. ThinkingKap helped us identify the most appropriate way to deliver our training to mobile devices. We knew there was a huge challenge communicating our complex material on tiny phone screens, but the design and approach ThinkingKap came up with was just perfect. The course is easy to use and understand, and people love it!

HOW IT WORKS

If you come to ThinkingKap for help with mobile learning, the first question we’re going to ask is, “Why?”

Next, we need to know: “What type of device – or devices – are you going to deliver the training through?” and “What type of training experience are you trying to create?”

Now it’s time to talk about learning objectives, content narratives, and instructional strategies. The most import difference between ILT, eLearning, and mobile learning is its duration.

In order to succeed, like with all other forms of training, the structure and content must fit the medium. In the case of mobile learning, that calls for short bursts of content.

FAQs

Frequently Asked Questions

Mobile is just an eLearning course. Just a setting when you go to publish. So why do I need mobile specifically?

That’s a good question! So, why do you need mobile specifically?

Once you answer that question and decide you need it, republish your current eLearning courses with the mobile setting and see how it looks and navigates on various devices. At that point, you can decide if it is ‘good enough’ for your purposes. There’s a good chance it isn’t – and if not, you have a decision to make. Are there compromises you can make to sufficiently utilize your course on both desktops and mobile devices, or do you need to rethink the approach to give the best experience to both mobile and desktop users?

How is designing for Mobile different than designing for eLearning?”

This partly has to do with technical requirements, and partly to do with design requirements.

Mobile devices use HTML5, which has some limitations compared to the Flash environments many people have become accustomed to. People are also using their fingers instead of a keyboard and mouse, which provides a different way of interacting. Designing around these aspects requires understanding of the medium.

From a design standpoint, you should be trying to put less on the screen and using less media in general. Some of that has to do with attention spans, and some of it comes down to the size of people’s fingers and how much room there is on a touch screen. The whole point is to better the user experience on a small screen. Often times this requires more creativity on the design side of things to optimize the presentation for the medium.

Aren’t most mobile courses shorter and simpler than eLearning? Does that also mean cheaper and faster to develop?

The cost should be the same as a comparably complex eLearning course. We use the same programs to design both. But mobile learning tends to be deliberately simple to optimize the delivery over mobile connections and small screens. Yes, the courses are shorter with less content but often times this requires more creativity on the design side of things to optimize the presentation for the device. In the end, a mobile course typically turns out to be similarly priced as other eLearning of the same duration.

How do I know my mobile training will be compatible with iOS, Android, and whatever people are using five years from now.

Most of what we are developing creates HTML5 output, which is essentially the standard mobile language.

Our training is broadly compatible with mobile browsers. Additionally, many of the courses we design run on an Articulate app that’s optimized for playback on both Android and iOS.

Can’t I just repurpose my eLearning courses?

Wouldn’t that be nice? More likely you have one course and some people take it on desktop and some on mobile. But not everything was designed with each medium in mind, so you may be disappointed in how things function. An example, if you’ve designed a roll over, that functionality doesn’t exist on a touch-screen, so the learner will miss out on that content. That’s one of many functionality and tech differences between desktop and mobile.

Another part of the problem is that for mobile, you’re working with a tiny screen. Almost every course that takes advantage of being delivered on a sizable screen is not optimized for a five-inch screen. Whether that’s font size or button size or screen layout. That’s why almost all websites these days have a desktop version and a mobile version. They know that the full featured version of their website doesn’t run well on mobile.