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.
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I'm a Web and eLearning developer looking for (and striving to create) eLearning that delights as well as educates. Please join me.
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