Interactive assets

Content doesn't have to be traditionally learning-focused to benefit from instructional design. I worked across campaigns in Pearson Marketing to ensure interactive content was designed with objectives, user experience, and best practices in mind.

Interactive product tours

Objective (Revel): This module is an update to an older set of "Quick Review" demos. The original demos consisted of single, interactive videos with an average run time of 11 minutes. Our goal for the new videos was to offload the non-essential information into popups that could be explored at the customer’s own pace and to segment the demo into multiple videos by topic. The total runtime of all videos in the piece was cut down to 5 minutes.

Objective (Interactive labs): Sales reps and customers needed a way to understand the consistent structure of lab content and to step through a sampling of that content quickly, without having to complete a full lab. Our strategy was to present an introduction, a TOC overview, and a video carousel for each of the 4 parts of the lab. The micro-videos within each carousel show a 10-25 second example of the interaction that takes place in that part of the lab, with a description in the caption. The 4 main carousels represent a full lab experience from a single discipline. Supplementary content is available for exploration in the form of “additional examples” in each section. These function as pop-ups with multiple videos per pop-up.

My work: For each of these product tours I oversaw the instructional design and content planning from concept proposal to production. I worked with our interactive platform partner to develop the demo template, storyboarded all micro-videos, wrote copy and voiceover, and collaborated with an interactive designer to execute the videos and interface.

Demos

Objective (Connexus videos): These demos were targeted at prospective customers in the consideration phase. The objective was to present a series of videos addressing different product features and benefits, in which the user interface of the product was heavily featured — but only to show ease-of-use and not to get into step-by-step detail.

Objective (Smarthinking video): This demo was targeted at existing customers to guide them through the steps of making Smarthinking tutoring available to their students.

My work: Production followed a traditional instructional design (ADDIE) approach. I worked with stakeholders to define objectives and conducted analysis activities to make a strategy recommendation. I then storyboarded a script with graphic and dynamic text descriptions, wrote on-screen text and voiceover, and collaborated with a motion graphics designer to execute demos that provided clear product guidance and matched the tone-of-voice and style requested.

Interactive infographics

Objective: What most marketers are looking to achieve with an interactive infographic is engagement. They want to liven up the data beyond the capabilities of a PDF. As an ID, I like an interactive format because it demands thought be put into the hierarchy of information — putting only the most important data up front and keeping the more detailed narrative behind interaction points.

My work: I initiated interactive infographics by wireframing a few potential concepts. This allowed me to identify what information could be presented visually, the best chart type for the data, where text narrative was required, and what kind of interactions we would use. Once our solution was selected, I would oversee collaboration between a content specialist and a graphic designer to execute the final piece.