One of the challenges that faces a mobile learning designer
is how to quickly identify what sorts of content work best on a mobile device.
If you have the budget and time to undertake comparative research, you are
lucky. Most of us have to go with what feels right. Best guesses may work, but
they may not. Failure to deliver engaging content will undermine confidence in
the mobile platform and your ability as a designer. So where do you go to
identify good practice? There is plenty of scholarly opinion on this, and I
would not claim to have read all of it. A couple of useful ones include
Kearney: Viewing mobile learning from a
pedagogical perspective (2012) (http://www.researchinlearningtechnology.net/index.php/rlt/article/view/14406)
and Palloff Using Mobile Technology in
Faculty Development and Training (2012) (www.uwex.edu/disted/conference/Resource_library/proceedings/63580_2012.pdf).
There are lots of others, but these are pretty succinct and a good place to
start.
I have taken a pragmatic approach to finding out what works,
by looking at what is popular with mobile users. I decided to exploit the world
of marketing, in the form of Smart Insights, to get some results, as this group
has no educational axe to grind.
Source: Smart Insights, Statistics
on mobile usage and adoption to inform your mobile marketing strategy (http://www.smartinsights.com/mobile-marketing/mobile-marketing-analytics/mobile-marketing-statistics/)
Most mobile users are essentially information consumers. You
can load a smartphone with office apps to create presentations and write
content, but very few people would argue that it is the best platform for doing
this; it is often a last resort when time is tight or your laptop has run out
of battery. Tablets are better, but we can see from the push to deliver tablets
with detachable keyboards—the 2-in-1 option—that the screen keyboard on a
tablet is a less-good substitute for the real thing. Our fingers are too big
and the keyboard hogs a lot of the screen real estate. So consumption, with
minimal interaction through a keyboard, is one of the key physical criteria for
identifying what is good on a mobile device.
So in the Smart Insights analysis, most smartphone mobile
users consume games, and then they start to search for information. There are
lots of things that we could discuss here, with gamification (the use of games
in learning) a clear candidate for another blog, but I am interested by the
fact that 36% of mobile users consume news on their devices. Of the activities
in the table, only SMS and updating social media sites have any element of
content creation, and that is fairly limited. As news consumption is probably
closest to “learning”, it looks like a good place to start an analysis of what
mobile users like and how they like it.
Identifying what mobile devices are delivering well and how to deliver it–Standing on the shoulders of giants
Newton had it right; you cannot expect to start from scratch
and design something ground-breaking; it would just take too long. So look for
some giants who have already done a lot of the leg work and stand on their
shoulders when you decide to go mobile. I recommend that you first look at what
top mobile content providers do well and then decide if this is going to be of
any use to your audience and their learning outcomes.
The huge advantage of mobile devices—and by mobile I mean
mobile, connected devices—is their anytime, anywhere functionality when it
comes to consuming data. This means that users can learn whenever a suitable
moment arises. This is great, but has some implications when you design training
that you want to publish for mobile devices.
Keep it short and to the point
The time that a user tends to spend on a mobile device is
far shorter than the time they may spend working at a full-sized screen. You
need to identify small pieces of learning that they can consume in the time it
takes to read a news article from CNN or the BBC online news services. That’s
about a thousand words (tops) or five minutes duration. You must also be
prepared to embrace non-text options. Mobile devices are good for video and
audio presentations, with 33% of users getting “entertainment” (whatever that
is) and 21% consuming video on their mobile devices. Remember, nothing too
detailed in the visual spaces, as you have limited screen size; so, a complex
wiring diagram or meticulous demonstration can become an exercise in squinting
or panning around a zoomed screen. Most smartphone and mobile users have
headphones—at least they were in the box when they opened it—so audio is a good
option, as you can see with 42% using their devices to listen to music.
Provide a functional screen layout
It is worth considering the newsfeed UI delivery approach in
more detail. I’ll use the BBC site for this review. Take a look at the BBC
mobile news site on your smartphone (http://m.bbc.co.uk/news)
and see how they have a short list of current stories, rather than a list of
all the stories that they have on the site. Each has an abstract which gives a
ten second preview. When you pick a story that you are interested in you will
find related stories at the end of the article—perhaps preceding news or
background analysis—that you can select if you want to know more.
Provide useful menu items only
The BBC mobile menu system is stripped down—a jump list to
other sections, such as business or politics—but they do make the space to
include a Most Read tab. People like to know what others are looking at and
this automated social rating is a popular option for users. Crisp, uncluttered and
content-focused is the name of the game.
Think about media types
Sticking with BBC mobile, what sorts of content do they
offer to their consumers? Text, video, and audio are all there. Notice that
there is very little interactivity. You may think that there isn’t much by way
of interactivity on any news feed, but the BBC has removed the comment options
for their mobile channel, while it is there for the same article on their http://bbc.co.uk/news site, with an area for
comments at the bottom of many articles.
I could argue either way one this, but
clearly the BBC sees mobile as straight consumption without any user generated
content—not even a rate this page option. You need to identify why you want feedback
or interactivity and the role that it will play in learning outcomes, before
you add it just because you can.
For video, try this. Launch the http://m.bbc.co.uk/sport site on your
smartphone and play a video. Works fine. Now try to load http://bbc.co.uk/sport on your smartphone and
play the same video. It’s not supported. The BBC uses a Flash player for their
full site but not for its mobile site. These are design details that you need
to note when you start moving your training to a mobile world.
Don’t distract the learner
The key lesson from the BBC mobile site is that its design,
intentionally or otherwise, follows an important rule of memory; don’t distract
the learner. I have, more often than I care to admit, walked upstairs to get
something, been distracted by someone in my family asking me to bring them down
something else, and arrived at the landing without a clue as to what I was
originally going to get. Short term memory is remarkably sensitive to interruptions.
Keep your learning item short and focussed. Just because there is something
else that is useful, do not put it in a prominent place on the screen or have
it highlighted. Put additional materials at the foot of your learning item, so
that the learner can consume the core content without losing the flow through
unnecessary information that may become a diversion. For a fascinating view
into the functionality of short and long term memory that is a great read, try Permanent Present Tense: The man with no
memory, and what he taught the world by Dr Suzanne Corkin.
Just as an aside, because it could be a blog of its own, you
should also put your knowledge checks—those quick recall items—at the end of a
section. Assessment of longer term memory should be separate from your
learning.
Hope this gives some practical pointers on your mlearning design.
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