quote:

Originally posted by Robert Saari:
If the client is unwilling to listen to expert advice, you have two choices:

• Stick to your guns and refuse the job and income.
  
• Build it to the client specs and get paid.
  

Hi Robert,
To elaborate on what Fanatic mentioned, educating your clients is extremely crucial. When you include a feature, it should be because it is beneficial to the course and not because of your client's whims and fancies.

Your arguments should be based on facts and research rather than opinions. Always ensure that you have the bigger goal in mind (to make an effective learning design). Once the client realizes that you are looking out for them, they will will be more reasonable.

Cheers,
Archana
http://elearning.kern-comm.com/

I realise that I am 2 months behind on this debate but have just come across this discussion forum when trying to solve the same issues being discussed here. I have read Clark and Mayer 'e-learning and the Science of Instruction' and this goes some way to address the issues. However, my questions are as follows:
1. The general concensus seems to be that audio with animation are best for learning. If so, what is our recommendation if some of our users dont have headphones? In previous programmes we have added an audio on/off button toggle. If we have designed a course full of animation and audio then presumably we have to provide a transcript, and so does this effect the user experience for those without headphones?
2. What about screens that don't have animation e.g. intros and summaries? Is it better that there is no audio on these screens?
3. Perhaps the same goes for questions. Users need to think about their options and so having these read out could be distracting. This includes feedback. Do you agree?
4. If you agree with point 2 and 3, is it odd to the user that some screens have audio and some don't? Any work arounds for this?
5. Finally, my clients suggest we narrate all onscreen text due to 'accessibility' guidelines. Is a transcript enough in this case?

Smithy, welcome to the discussion.

1. As you've seen in "Elearning & the Science of Instruction," audio is recommended for describing complex graphics. I don't believe they make a recommendation that audio and animation are best for learning in general. Your need for audio or animation will depend on your learners and your content. You might also want to look at "Efficiency in Learning" by Clark et al.

If you decide you must have audio, then it's good practice to also provide a transcript. However, if you know that several learners won't be able to use the audio, it might be a good idea to question its use, especially when the audio is used to describe an animation and the timing of the words is important.

2. If your screens have text, there's likely no need for audio. Research cited by Clark et al. has shown that reading text to learners hurts learning.

3. I agree that there's no need to read questions (or anything else) to adult learners.

4. If you use audio only on screens that have little or no text (to explain complex graphics), then it won't seem odd to learners. I've worked on several projects that used a combination of HTML and Flash. Only the Flash animations, which didn't include much text, used audio. They were clearly different from the HTML page and were used to show complex processes or scenes from a scenario.

5. Accessible projects I've worked on provided HTML text-only transcripts for all audio and animation. The transcripts were formatted so someone using a screen reader could navigate them meaningfully.

Commenters to my blog post on this issue have also discussed ways to respond to clients concerned about accessibility:

http://blog.cathy-moore.com/?p=22

It's also useful to remember that blind users with screen readers often set the screen reader to read more quickly than a human narrator would read. You could argue that audio narration slows everyone down and should be used only when it truly supports learning.

Thanks Cathy, I've just been to your site and posted another message before I'd seen this reply. I'll take a look at the Book you've suggested. Would you advocate showing an audio icon on screens that have audio so those with headphones don't think their headphones aren't working?

An audio icon, like a speaker, would be a good idea if the distinction between text and audio-supported animation isn't clear enough. The projects that I've worked on that have clearly separated text and audio-supported animations haven't used an audio icon, and I'm not aware of learners reporting any confusion.