Mindflash

What’s standing between your Trainees and your training objectives? Oftentimes it’s complexity. Whether it’s the volume of information or a SME who thinks everything is important, there is usually more information to convey than is practical. Combine that with a short timeline and you’ve got a classic training conundrum. Enter the infographic. Well-designed infographics convey messages in a way that eases comprehension; they capitalize on our innate understandings of the world around us to help build context and retain information.... Read more »

Writing solid, results-oriented quizzes is, in my opinion, one of the biggest challenges of training design.  And of all the quiz question types we commonly use, perhaps the most abused and disrespected is the “True or False” (T/F) question. Over the years I’ve heard T/F questions described by training managers and fellow designers as “filler”, “weak”, “a crutch”, “lazy”, and “ineffective.”  Are T/F questions the ultimate training design cop-out, or, is it more likely that we just don’t use them well? ... Read more »

Have you ever found yourself struggling to find a stock image with a transparent background?  Or, maybe you’ve wasted hours of your time trying to remove the background from an image? While there may not be a silver bullet, there are plenty of cool shortcuts, tricks, free tools, and tutorials. In this post, I provide ratings and video tutorials for 5 great tools that I commonly use.... Read more »

With many training and development departments stretched thin or nearly non-existent, the task of creating new online training is daunting enough. Who has time to think about maintenance?  And yet, allowing your programs to go stale poses some significant operational risks. I say - go green! I’ve put together a few easy to implement training design best practices that will get you off the training reproduction line by using the 3 Rs: Reuse, Recycle and Renew.... Read more »

No matter how dull a training topic might be, it shouldn’t be a barrier to creativity, it should inspire ingenuity.  But there are some topics that are just hard to get excited about.  When your job is to create an engaging experience, how do you ignite that creative spark to help you turn the world’s most boring material into the world’s most amazing training?... Read more »

In part 1 of “Reaching the Reluctant Trainee”, I explored two basic types of reluctant trainees – the Skeptic and the Technophobe -and gave you some tips and techniques I use to get to know my training audience better.  In most cases, a fear of change drives the reluctant behavior, but only when you’ve identified the specific barriers [...]... Read more »

If you’ve always assumed that your training audience should be purely motivated by the goals & objectives you provide, I’ll wager that you’ve also come across a few holdouts that resist online training no matter how many goals or objectives you throw at them. These are the trainees who will not be won over by logical arguments about improved performance or smarter workflows. ... Read more »

Life’s little moments of surprise and delight are a welcome break from the expected & can transform an ordinary moment into a memorable one. Yet in training, we tend to regard surprise as a negative element to be “overcome” or “avoided.”  But what would happen if we stopped trying to outfox the element of surprise and started leveraging it to create better training?... Read more »

Just a quick note that the Mindflash Blog will now be featured on eLearningLearning.com! We’re really excited to join—and make a contribution to—the conversations happening there!... Read more »

Like other visual design elements, the right font has the power to grab your audience on an emotional level while reinforcing your message.   But unlikeother visual elements such as color scheme, photos, or clip art which are readily translated from inspiration to application, a stylized font can be harder to replicate and integrate into a design. ... Read more »