Do you want to capture and maintain your learners’ attention? You need to talk to the elephant.
The elephant metaphor is from Jonathan Haidt's book, The Happiness Hypothesis (http://www.happinesshypothesis.com/)
Peachpit (my publishers) just posted an article I wrote based on Chapter 5: Design for Attention. You can read the entire article here.
So, still need a gift for the design geek on your holiday shopping list?*
I’ve mentioned Stephen Anderson before (I’m a big ol’ fan), but I particularly love his Mental Notes cards, which cover dozens of psychology principles that impact how we design. Need to jump start your design process? Pull a few cards out the deck, and talk about how you can incorporate those ideas.
You can order them here: http://getmentalnotes.com/
I particularly mention it now because (aside from the fact that these are awesome) Stephen is donating half the proceeds right now.
* Yes, I know it’s a little late to order holiday presents (story of my life), but you can print some sample cards to use a placeholder gift until the real ones arrive.
The Toolbar is a podcast by Brian Dusablon and Judy Unrein that involves talking about the tools that e-learning practitioners use (and also beer). It’s just the kind of satisfying shoptalk that usually only happens at professional conferences or the like.
I got to be a guest on this week’s episode, talking about things like usability, feedback loops, quick and dirty user testing, and what’s fundamentally broken about e-learning development.
Go have a listen: The Toolbar Episode #9: Usability. Don’t Be a Moron (and even if you don’t have time for the whole episode, go check out the great list of links Brian compiled in the show notes).
One of the things I had while writing the book was an inspiration bookshelf. These were books that not only inspired the content of Design for How People Learn, but also the style of it.
None of these are instructional design books, but they are all books that instructional designers should read.
The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman (and also his book on Emotional Design)
The Non-designer’s Design Book by Robin Williams
Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud
Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug
The Art of Game Design by Jesse Schell
The Head First Books by Kathy Sierra, et al (really, any of the Head First books would work to look at. You can learn more about their approach here: http://headfirstlabs.com/readme.php)
A Theory of Fun by Ralph Koster
This one is more recent, but it’s a great book too:
Seductive Interaction Design by Stephen Anderson
How about you? What’s on your inspiration bookshelf?
