As the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates said, "Know yourself", a good instructional designer should also know your audience, your environment and the most important of which is to know your topic.
People wouldn't speak without a topic in most cases but just sometimes forget the topic during the middle of speaking. It is just not good for instructional design as well since your topic could be your basic story line, your target and where you enter the instruction process and exit.Once you get in the topic, you'd better stick to it.
This is like what I felt when I reviewed my infographic work. When I was designing the "College entrance test for Chinese" I wasn't so clear about my topic at the beginning, so I spent lots of time to explorer the facts, digits and dreamt to create a greatest picture ever being. But, in the end, I was exhausted and the outcome was not that ideal. Why?
First,the topic should be as small as possible as I still put up a huge topic for a mere graphic. I found a lot of digits about enrollment points,admission rate of something but they don't match up well with each other in a single picture. The surplus information wouldn't bring you as a designer the feel of fulfillment but the opposite. You would feel like being chasing by a hound when you catch up with more than enough information.
Second,once you got the topic(which should be do-able at first),come to the desk and sit down, say to yourself,"I won't run away this time." None of the topic would save the disturbance, believe me. You may want to change the topic all the time but the audience don't expect to see all of them. They have somewhat pragmatic nature, which would be translated as critical, outcome-oriented, or anything you just don't like but hey,no one would pay for your changeable mind, your discarded work or your abandoned dreams. So, it is good to keep it up and fight to the end. Don't run away from a potential master piece easily.
Third,know your topic means know yourself.Warning: You must make sure you are not Leonardo Da Vinci's reincarnation. Ok, proceed. I have to concede masters are around us but, you should know Leonardo and his alike were not born to be great painters.You need the patience to make yourself to be a great figure. So, now, please work on this tiny,little, humble topic for a while.(BTW, Leonardo couldn't speak English, right? And is not an ISTer?Great!)What I learnt from the infographic work is, you should know the limitation of your ability.Don't ask yourself what you can't do even after you spend time to learn. It is not bad to hand in a smaller, shallower work, never mind but once you decide to have a huge one, please remember, you should also make it as good, or it would leave worse impression to your audience.
Last but not least, check the details carefully. color-match,font,spelling. In a word,if you want to be perfect, please define the perfection, remember it and have fun!
Hope I will be fine in the Job aid work!
People wouldn't speak without a topic in most cases but just sometimes forget the topic during the middle of speaking. It is just not good for instructional design as well since your topic could be your basic story line, your target and where you enter the instruction process and exit.Once you get in the topic, you'd better stick to it.
This is like what I felt when I reviewed my infographic work. When I was designing the "College entrance test for Chinese" I wasn't so clear about my topic at the beginning, so I spent lots of time to explorer the facts, digits and dreamt to create a greatest picture ever being. But, in the end, I was exhausted and the outcome was not that ideal. Why?
First,the topic should be as small as possible as I still put up a huge topic for a mere graphic. I found a lot of digits about enrollment points,admission rate of something but they don't match up well with each other in a single picture. The surplus information wouldn't bring you as a designer the feel of fulfillment but the opposite. You would feel like being chasing by a hound when you catch up with more than enough information.
Second,once you got the topic(which should be do-able at first),come to the desk and sit down, say to yourself,"I won't run away this time." None of the topic would save the disturbance, believe me. You may want to change the topic all the time but the audience don't expect to see all of them. They have somewhat pragmatic nature, which would be translated as critical, outcome-oriented, or anything you just don't like but hey,no one would pay for your changeable mind, your discarded work or your abandoned dreams. So, it is good to keep it up and fight to the end. Don't run away from a potential master piece easily.
Third,know your topic means know yourself.Warning: You must make sure you are not Leonardo Da Vinci's reincarnation. Ok, proceed. I have to concede masters are around us but, you should know Leonardo and his alike were not born to be great painters.You need the patience to make yourself to be a great figure. So, now, please work on this tiny,little, humble topic for a while.(BTW, Leonardo couldn't speak English, right? And is not an ISTer?Great!)What I learnt from the infographic work is, you should know the limitation of your ability.Don't ask yourself what you can't do even after you spend time to learn. It is not bad to hand in a smaller, shallower work, never mind but once you decide to have a huge one, please remember, you should also make it as good, or it would leave worse impression to your audience.
Last but not least, check the details carefully. color-match,font,spelling. In a word,if you want to be perfect, please define the perfection, remember it and have fun!
Hope I will be fine in the Job aid work!
Hello Mintian,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your blog again this week. You make some excellent observations and provide important insight based upon your personal experiences. You also managed to maintain a great sense of humor in spite of the design challenges you recently encountered. I am glad to learn that I am not the only one who sometimes forgets his topic in the middle of speaking!
You mention the importance of staying on topic with your instructional design. This seems like it would be easy to due, but it is just as easy to lose sight of the instructional objectives. I think it is important to continually refer back to the instructional objectives throughout the design process to ensure the training maintains its original and intended focus. As you mention, this is also good advice when designing an infographic.
I also appreciate your advice related to persistence. I have considered changing the topic for my job aid on more than one occasion, but I know I need to give it a real chance. It may not be easy, but most things worth doing are not.
Thank you for sharing your very timely reflections this week, Mintian! Take care and I wish you the very best of luck with your job aid project as well as with your ongoing design efforts.
Respectfully,
Kipp