Screen Beans: You Had Me At Goodbye
January 26, 2008
Time for some blunt honesty here. I promise I’ll be (mostly) polite.
If I see a Screen Bean in an eLearning course, presentation, or website in this, the year 2008, what the designer is clearly telling me, the viewer, is this:“I got nuthin’.”
Seriously people, let’s move on. Screen Beans were great OK 10 years ago.
Now that we’ve seen them all (again…and again…and again…), let’s give them the long overdue retirement they richly deserve and start using fresh new images. Even Michael Jordan had to bow out eventually.
Try iStockPhoto.
Yes, they have illustrations too.
Yes, they cost money.
Yes, your learners will thank you for making the minimal investment.
When I see a Screen Bean, I immediately look for the Next Page button.
Please join me.
Posted in Presentations, eLearning Design, eLearning Hall of Shame
content rss
January 27th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
Hi,
I work for an elearning firm in Bangalore, India. We are looking at building a database of off the shelf content providers for different industry verticals. Would you know any content providers who have domain related content on retail / manufacturing / healthcare? Would be a great hekp if you could let me know. As mentioned we are not looking at custom course development, only off the shelf providers.
Thanks
Ronita
ronita.dutta@24×7learning.com
January 28th, 2008 at 11:53 am
Hey Ronita, sorry, I don’t have any substantive info on content providers for you.
Chris
March 7th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
[...] It will make your content look like it all belongs together. Also, once and for all, throw away the screen beans (unless of course you’re doing a course for [...]
March 18th, 2008 at 6:43 pm
Ronita —
Try http://www.astd.org They are are organization of trainers, so training content is their thing.
There is also the Society for Technical Communication at http://www.stc.org
March 18th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
Ronita —
Try http://www.astd.org They are are organization of trainers, so training content is their thing.
There is also the Society for Technical Communication at http://www.stc.org
September 25th, 2008 at 6:49 am
Screen beans are timeless and can be used for all sorts of purposes and to illustrate all sorts of concepts. People in professional e-learning environments don’t use them for proprietary courses anyway – I know this, I’ve worked in e-learning for years. Companies have their own libraries of graphics. For internal company presentations, particularly those explaining concepts, screen beans can be very useful and – if used properly – inject a playfulness to PowerPoint presentations that they often lack.
So I don’t agree with your point. People like screen beans for a reason, and if they’re misused or used lazily, then that’s the fault of the user.
August 12th, 2009 at 8:02 am
Screen beans are timeless [2]!
you said:
[...] Use the same style of clip art to maintain consistency. It will make your content look like it all belongs together [...] –> what better to do that than gudold Screen Beans?
(btw, you should giveaway your collection of ScrBeens cliparts… the rest of the world wold thank you.)
October 22nd, 2009 at 3:29 pm
oh come-on you cannot suggest retiring something because it has been used again and again! Screen beans are simple and fun. Simple because all the other clip arts are far too distracting with stuff like shading colors etc; if I want that much info I would post a reasonable sized picture. They are fun because they add a playfulness, makes things a bit light.
The other day I saw a Prof’s webpage about presentation also chiding the use of ’screen beans’! I can understand problems with small fonts, pale colors etc but looking for the “Next Page” just because of ’screen beans’ is clearly unfair.
By the way, do you know what else has been used again and again? presentations are really old “let’s move on”, hey alphabets of English language are really really old “let’s move on”.
To quote your own words ……………. “If I see a jeans on this author in this, the year 2008, what the wearer is clearly telling me, the viewer, is this:“I got nuthin’.”