If you follow Sweller’s cognitive load theory, then you understand that the graphics in your elearning course are very important and play a large role in its effectiveness. However, not having the right graphics is a challenge.

If you’re like me, you’re on a limited budget and you just can’t go buy custom graphics whenever you like. That means you’re probably stuck using the standard clip art that comes with PowerPoint.

After just a few projects you cycle through all of the good clip art and you’re forced to use the clowns and puppies. While your five-year-old child might like your choice of images, you’ll find that many in your organization are not particularly fond of clowns or puppies. If only you had known that before you started.

How Do I Get the Graphics I Need?

If you want custom graphics, you can hire someone (although you might want to read this before working with a graphic designer) or you can make them yourself. For the moment, I am assuming that you have no money and you want to make the graphics yourself.

In this case, I recommend two options: 1) create your own drawings or 2) modify existing clip art.

[Note: Microsoft stopped providing clip art but you can still use the same ideas by ungrouping vector images in PowerPoint.]

Option 1: Stick with your skills and draw your own graphics

Here’s a generic image that is easy to create.

With minor tweaks, you can use the same image over and over again, each time telling a different story. As you can see below, it doesn’t take much to make the images mean different things.

However, there is a very slight possibility that many in your organization will not appreciate your graphic art skills. In that case, I suggest trying the second option.

Option 2: Modify existing clip art

Here’s your challenge. You want an image of a lady presenting some information to her team. However, you cannot find the right image. In the following example, you’re going to learn to take two separate clip art images and combine them to make the image you need.

Become a clip art surgeon.
Without going into technical details, most clip art is a series of grouped images. That means you can ungroup the clip art and pull out or add the elements you need.

Just right-click on the image and select ungroup. Sometimes, you have to do it twice. You should see something like this.

Once you ungroup, you can pull out the things you don’t need. You can also add items to change the clip art and make it something new. In this case, we’re going to combine the two images and make it look like the woman is presenting to the group at the table.

[Note: Microsoft stopped providing clip art but you can still use the same ideas by ungrouping vector images in PowerPoint.]

1. Ungroup the images.
2. Start with the first image. Take out the elements you don’t want.
3. Select the entire image and regroup it.
4. Do the same for the next image.
5. Combine the elements from image 1 with image 2 to make the desired image.
6. Select the entire image and regroup it to make a single image.
7. If you want to use the image elsewhere, go ahead and save it by right clicking on it and selecting “save image as” and choose the format you prefer. I recommend .emf because you’ll retain the image transparency and vector. However, you’ll see that there are many formats from which to choose.

If you look at the image you’ll notice that I did a few things.

• I took one of the people out of the team image. She was facing the wrong direction.
• I flipped the team image so that it looked like they were facing the presenter.
• The presenter’s shirt was white, so I changed the color.
• I got rid of the backgrounds and the presenter’s table to make the image less cluttered.
• I layered the presenter behind the table to give the image a little depth.
• I changed the content on her flip chart, taking her from boring corporate drone to brilliant elearning consultant.

Now it’s your turn to practice doing this. Remember, the only limitation is your creativity. If your people need hard hats, find a hard hat image and add it to the clip art. If you need multiple ethnicities, change the hair and skin color. The possibilities are endless.

Here are three quick tips.

• Create a work slide. I build a lot of my elearning courses in PowerPoint and publish with Articulate Presenter. I tend to create the images I need on the fly. Because of this, I like to use a blank slide as a work area. I’ll move the clip art to the slide, make it big and then take it apart. Once I am done, I copy and paste the image to the real slide. This way I don’t accidentally, mess up my content slides.
• Control the clutter. The ungrouped elements that make up the image are layered. Sometimes, it’s not easy to get to what you want. What I do is make a series of duplicate images and delete what I don’t want. Then I pull the individual pieces together and regroup the image.
• Create mini groupings. I find it easier to grab a part of the image and create a mini group rather than work on the whole image. This way you only have to work with a few mini groups rather than hundreds of little pieces.

By ungrouping and modifying existing clip art, you have the ability to make custom images to fit the needs of your elearning course. It’s inexpensive and, once you get a handle on it, pretty quick to do. In fact, outside of the original stick figures, I built all of the graphics for this post in PowerPoint. It only took about 5 minutes to build the presenter image for this demo.

I’m interested in seeing some before and after images. Feel free to send them my way. When I get enough, I’ll post them for others to see what can be done.

In the next post, we’ll look at how to use image styles so that you have consistent graphics to use throughout your elearning course.

Events

Free E-Learning Resources

Want to learn more? Check out these articles and free resources in the community.	Here’s a great job board for e-learning, instructional design, and training jobs	Participate in the weekly e-learning challenges to sharpen your skills
Get your free PowerPoint templates and free graphics & stock images.	Lots of cool e-learning examples to check out and find inspiration.	Getting Started? This e-learning 101 series and the free e-books will help.

Earlier, we looked at how to be an e-learning hero. Today, we’ll look at ways to jump-start your e-learning projects.

You’re asked to pull an e-learning course together within a couple of weeks. What do you do?

In the past, you may have told your customers that there isn’t enough time to build the training. Today, that’s not the case. E-learning allows you to say “yes” to your customer’s hurried requests.

While the tools do give you a head start, you’re still going to be pressed for time. Here are 5 simple tips to help you prepare for your next e-learning project.

E-Learning Project Tip: Create a Generic Training Template

If you have limited time to develop your e-learning course, you don’t want to spend days trying to determine an approach. With the right template, you can stay ahead of the game. It should include learning objectives, a structure to present the information, and a means to evaluate the learner’s understanding.

You might want to design two or more templates that consider various types of training. One could deal with presenting information in a linear manner. Another could address performance-based training where the user has to learn and apply skills. Regardless of how you structure your template, the main point is to have a design template ready to go.

Of course, with Articulate 360 and the included content library, you have more than enough templates to get started.

E-Learning Project Tip: Create Models for Learner Interactivity

It’s important to engage the learners from the real-world perspective. They want to know why the training is important to them. Interactive e-learning is one way to do that. Interactivity goes beyond just drag-and-drop features. It’s more about getting the learner to connect with (and think through) the information presented in the e-learning course. This could include case studies and problem-solving questions. There is a lot that can be done with interactions. They don’t need to be overly complicated to be successful.

I like this ergonomics example from Prometheus created with a simple labeled graphic interaction. The users are engaged and need to make decisions based on the information presented. They also get immediate feedback after the decision is made. It’s a perfect example of an interaction that is effective and easy to design.

Look at what other people are doing (the weekly challenges are great for this) and make a list of interactions that work and that you could apply to your projects. Then when you start to look at your course content, you can pull from a list of proven interaction ideas. You won’t have to spend time trying to invent some.

E-Learning Project Tip: Create Some Style Themes and Templates

No matter what type of course you build, you’ll still need to have a specific look to it. The nice thing about using Articulate’s e-learning tools is that the player design is complete. You don’t have to spend a lot of time designing navigation features.

Even though the player is ready-to-go, there’s still a need to think through the overall look and feel of the training course. You can gain some ground if you pre-design templates with various layouts and color schemes, as mentioned above. There are a number of times where I’ve pulled one of my templates out of the drawer (so to speak) and the customer was happy with it and ready to go.

Even if you’re using a PowerPoint, you still have a lot of latitude in what you can do. The slides do not need to look like PowerPoint slides. Step away from the bullet points and treat the slide as a blank area and see what you can do.

The key is to have a few design ideas ready-to-go. This way you can put together a quick prototype without a lot of thought about the design.

E-Learning Project Tip: Collect Media Assets

It’s important to have the right images and visuals for your training courses. There are a few things you can do to get ready for your next project. If you’re using Articulate 360, you have access to templates, pictures, illustrations, videos, and icons. Take advantage of them. There are also all sorts of free stock images and resources to be had online.

Build a collection of images that fit the same style and look. You can group images together to create your own visual metaphors. In addition, you can change the colors of the images to match your template color theme.

It’s also a good idea to collect pictures of characters. Again, with Articulate 360, you get thousands of characters and avatars.

If you work in a production environment, you might want to go around and take pictures of the equipment and people working on it.

You can also use a photo editor to create your own graphics. Create boxes and arrows. Apply some effects to add a bit of pop to your screen. You can even build your own graphics in PowerPoint.

Having the right images is important. It’s also a time-consuming process. Start early and build your collection. When you need the image or ideas, you’ll have a great resource at your disposal.

E-Learning Project Tip: Create a list of questions to ask?

The better you are at asking questions and listening, the better you can design your e-learning course. When you’re in a rush, it’s easy to ask the wrong questions, or even to forget the right questions. Having a pre-determined list of questions you want to ask is important to getting the right e-learning course built.

Determine what you need to know about projects and create some questions. It’s also a good idea to condense the list to five key questions and forward that to the client before the meeting. This gives them a heads up on what you need to cover and might save some time.

Final Thoughts

You’re under a lot of pressure to meet deadlines and deliver results. Using Articulate’s e-learning tools plays a large role in getting your work done. The five tips above are some ways to help you speed up your e-learning project development.

This list isn’t exhaustive. What would you do?

In our next post, we’ll review what you should know about designing e-learning courses.

Events

Free E-Learning Resources

Want to learn more? Check out these articles and free resources in the community.	Here’s a great job board for e-learning, instructional design, and training jobs	Participate in the weekly e-learning challenges to sharpen your skills
Get your free PowerPoint templates and free graphics & stock images.	Lots of cool e-learning examples to check out and find inspiration.	Getting Started? This e-learning 101 series and the free e-books will help.