I think it is just a timing issue. In time the libraries coders like my team are building will transition into easily-editable templates for simple repurposing. In fact, we are quite keen to release ours as open source in a few months, if there is enough demand.

The key thing for me, though, is NOT to start from big-screen, course-style e-learning and go small. Rather to start from what smartphones do best, and build up from that. This is why any e-learning tool will have a hard time adapting, and the best stuff is bound to start from being handcrafted for mobile.

(I realise I am slightly rephrasing what you said in your post … clearly we are on the same wavelength here!)
  

We are based in the uk, and find exactly the same thing here!

So much so that my team have abandoned any authoring tools that auto-generate code, in favour of building our html5 by hand! Mostly because it lets us experiment with different JavaScript libraries, screen layouts and inter activities.

For me, the “magic sauce” is really the increased power of the mobile browsers themselves, and the awesome JavaScript libraries out there that let you exploit them, rather than the overhyped html5 label itself!

Great post. And thanks to Clark for connecting us!

@geoffstead

I can say that after using RoboHelp for years at a previous company, I would love to have performance support authoring tools from a company that cares as much about user experience (for both the author and the end user) as Articulate does.

I’m confident that we may have seen the bottom – the dregs of learning solutions – and there is only one way to go from here. Storyline is a tool. I think it’s going to work really well for us in some situations. I plan to use it judiciously to help us reach market with small experiences faster by using the tool directly in co-creation sessions that I hope to close with a “done product” that fits into a much larger framework of performance support.

Here are my observations:

Nobody is doing HTML5 well on the e-learning tool development front. I’ve seen the output or conversions from every tool I’m familiar with and I’ve not been wowed. I don’t see much HTML5 value at all with the exception of some audio / video tags. 

I think this is in part due to a mismatch in expectations. For the past years we’ve built the expectation of smoothly integrated media and tight / snappy response that tools like Flash and other compiler based outputs tend to deliver. For layered behavior in publishing algorithms, I don’t think we’ve found the magic sauce with HTML5. What we’re seeing is a slight modification of either HTML5 outputs relabeled as HTML5 or an attempt to convert a presentation based output (poorly in most cases) to an HTML based output. 

Lectora’s brazen and, in my opinion, misleading marketing stance is troubling. Lectora stopped being what they were and started trying to be “others” or “better than others”. I get that this is a competitive industry, but I don’t think they can back up the rhetoric with the current round of tools. Rather than focusing on tuning and developing their core toolset (which hasn’t done anything truly innovative for over a decade — inheritance is pretty cool and still unique to Lectora for the most part) they’ve tried to chase and be like others. If they still have the same core engineers (pretty sure they still have John Blackman) they’ve got what it takes to crank out a great toolset. Chasing others or building on top of an existing tool with minor stacked gimmicks and exaggerated claims isn’t going to result in a great toolset.

I chose Lectora over many other tools over a decade ago for a starter development tool for our organization. I’m finding that I regularly regret that decision as this tool has taken position as the “standard and only approved tool organization wide”. It’s got a curve that is useful in the middle, useless at the bottom (tool as barrier) and frustratingly limited at the top. It’s not a great match for many / most of our development needs and we’re not getting the value out of the tool that I would like to see. 

Lectora seems to be spreading itself thin with lack of focus and a marketing department run amok with claims that will be difficult if not impossible to back up. Maybe they are in the zone and they’ll fool folks into believing it. I could be totally be wrong. 

Seems to me we need a different class of toolset. Something different than anything we’ve seen before. Here’s my wishlist – not necessarily in this order:

1 – Clean and efficient output. For reference, last I tested publishing a Lectora page without any content, it weighed in at 12K+. Ouch.
2 – Multi-tier transportable source. I want to buy and use a tool because the tool is great, not because I’m locked into it to edit packages. Make source configurations open and stand out by the features of the tool. This would let me move the source around between packages to get the best of each, or integrate with tools that target different levels of development. This woud require tool vendors to work together – the hour for working together on source standards is now. 
3 – Layered / mutable / progressively enhanced outputs. When I publish I don’t want the default to be a presentation based output. I want my development tools to support a DESIGN. A presentation with some built in widgets and games can be a component of a design, but this assumption locks me AND MY LEARNERS into a pattern that, in most cases, isn’t optimal or effective. Let me publish to any pattern of conveyance that I please and give my participants the opportunity to transform the output (within the, now extended, constraints of the tool).
4 – Modular frameworks that I can swap in and out at will and that work with the tools developed by other vendors. 

We’ve been stuck in a particular mindset where our tools are concerned. I’ve seen a tool or two that offer incremental advancement, but none that are propelling the industry in the direction it needs to go. The market for mediocre tools must be pretty vast:)

Interesting observations. We’ve had this and similar discussions in the past months. I’m really hoping we’ll see a surge in great tools in the near future. Legacy toolmakers aren’t managing the future of our discipline very well.

I have thought a lot about the player types/learning styles analogy and I’m really glad that you brought it up, as I do NOT advocate designing to learning styles. Why I think player styles are an interesting addition to the conversation is that it speaks to different preferences in terms of interacting with the content and other players, not because you absolutely must design to accomodate all of them in any gaming or gamification context.. and nor does Kapp recommend doing so. My impression with the l&d field as a whole is that we don’t tend to be big gamers, so though it seems very basic to say that I think knowing about “player styles” seems valuable because it informs us that there are different ways that people like to interact with games, that is in fact what I mean.

Thank you also for mentioning Sebastian Deterling… I love his work and hadn’t seen anything mentioning player styles, but I certainly think it’s important for people to expand their study beyond what’s coming from the l&d world. He had a great interview on eLearnMagazine recently (which for some reason I can’t find right now, but I’ll link it up when I can…) and just yesterday I saw that Kris Rockwell tweeted this presentation of his (and often shares his work): http://www.slideshare.net/dings/pawned-gamification-and-its-discontents — for anyone who’s looking for more.

I sincerely and greatly appreciate your adding to this conversation!

Game design scholars have also expressed great caution (and dismay) at the continuing use of Bartle’s Player Styles. See Sebastian Deterding for more…

Reflecting further on this post, I realized that it might come off as criticism to say that someone won’t be able to go out and create great games after reading it. It’s more meant to be a reality check to readers; I don’t know of any book that can imbue those skills without experience and practice… and further study.

Thanks for the great read!

I dedicated chapter 9 to helping designers and others develop a design document for their gamification processes so that they can codify the process they want to use, the instructional goals and the methodology they incorporate into their design. I think it is so important to add those elements.

Although I love games and think they are fun and instructional on so many levels, I tried to present a balanced approach to the research exploring games. I used an approach that focused on reviewing studies of studies (called a metanalysis) to be sure that I was not just culling results from a single source and then I did look at individual studies to see what we could learn about certain game attributes. I didn’t want to pit games vs. traditional instruction, I wanted to explore “what about games makes them effective learning tools.” 

And, as you indicate, an instructional designer armed with this information will make better, more informed design and vendor choices given that information. 

Finally, I love being involved in research and learning creation that actually requires me to play games but I also encourage anyone in the learning space to play games from a critical perspective. Think about what works, what is engaging, what is the game “forcing” you to do and decide if any of those elements can be incorporated, even in a small way, into the design of instruction.

Thanks again for taking a look at the book through the lens of an instructional designer, you surfaced some excellent points! Thanks for being a stop on the tour.

(http://daringfireball.net/linked/2012/03/12/ive)

I think of storing lots of information in suspend data just about the same way I think about creating branching scenarios in PowerPoint: Lots of people will clamor about how totally doable it is, but at a certain level of complexity, both the tech and the practical considerations of working with the pieces just fail.

Also, I love your example! I definitely think we’re looking at technology that helps us come closer to not only get better pictures of who our learners are as learners, but who they are as workers and as people. And that’s very, very cool.

Imagine being able to point a lens at any trend or event and see everything that surrounds that data point. R2D2 units 1, 3, and 5 keep having lower motor failures. Steve is the only tech that serviced R2D2 units 1, 3, and 5 over the past year. Bob has a perfect maintenance record and has mentored technicians. That’s a powerful lens.