I love seeing creative ways of explaining new concepts, and a great example of this is Epipheo Studios‘ recent intro to Google Wave.

Simple, engaging, informative and entertaining: it’s a great example of eLearning done right. It’s nice to see folks like Epipheo and Common Craft hard at work creating un-sucky eLearning.

Alas, some might argue that this isn’t really eLearning at all, but simply marketing – an argument with which I would strongly disagree.

Have a look at some of their other work as well. Great, great stuff. I don’t know about you, but as a learner I’d find my yearly corporate eLearning courses on mandatory topics (ugh!) much easier to swallow if they showed even a glimmer of this kind of passion and creativity.

And note the casual (and familiar) narration style. This guy sounds like…well…someone you actually know rather than someone trying to sell you something on late night TV (”Call right now and get a bonus set ABSOLUTELY FREE!“)

Imagine how different the impact of this would be had it been done using bullet points and a typical eLearning narration style from a poorly-chosen voiceover pro (or worse – one of those abominable robovoices).

This is eQuixotic Hall of Fame material, no doubt. Nice work guys.

Cisco just released the WebEx Meeting Center for the iPhone, and it looks impressive. Very impressive. Sadly, my organization is locked into a WebEx competitor’s product so I don’t have extensive experience with the tool, but I have used WebEx to participate in vendors’ webinars.

Have a look at Cisco’s video demo here, and then get the app for your iPhone (for free) in iTunes.

The iPhone is quickly becoming the ultimate do-it-all pocketable wonder device – including eLearning and virtual collaboration.

But not including, um, copy and paste. (Come on already Apple, this is just getting embarrassing.)

T’would be mighty fine indeed to participate in a webinar while sitting at the airport without having to fire up the laptop. I can’t wait to try it.

I have to say, I’m a sucker for a beautiful font. And there are plenty of them out there. But it’s often hard to find one that hits the sweet spot. In my case, something new, but old. Modern, yet classic. Cutting edge, yet comfortably familiar. Something that catches the eye, but doesn’t overpower.

They say no one ever got fired for using Helvetica, and that may be true, but I still try to steer clear. And (heaven help us all) we’ve seen plenty of Comic Sans (the font with its very own hate site, and rightfully so) in eLearning courses and presentations.

I’ve been through my Tw Cen MT, Futura, and Century Gothic phases. I enjoy Avenir and Akzidenz-Grotesque. But in the end, none of them have ultimately cried out “I’m you, baby!”

Proxima Nova says “I’m bold, but not brash. Sophisticated, yet lighthearted. Chic, while timeless.”

Yes, if I were a font, I’d want to be Proxima Nova. Check it out at Mark Simonson Studio.

eLearning and presentation designers don’t have to be limited to the fonts that came with Windows, you know…

(And for those of you who work for organizations oppressive enough to mandate a single typeface for all your eLearning and presentations – I’m sorry).

Like many other tech nerds, I awaited Google’s announcement of its first Android-based device yesterday with bated breath. Alas, like many other tech nerds, I was ultimately disappointed with what I saw.

Without a doubt, the mobile device user has been abused for years by poorly-designed and implemented operating systems that seemed to delight in the befuddlement (and subsequent rage) of their hapless victims owners. Then Apple unveiled the iPhone in January 2007, essentially telling pocket computingdom “You’re mad as heck, and you don’t have to take it anymore!” The response has been overwhelming. Not only evidenced by sales of the iPhone itself (I myself being a shamelessly enamored owner), but by the frantic responses of its competitors, including HTC’s new TouchFLO interface, which is basically a shiny new coat of paint covering up the much-maligned rusty heap that is Windows Mobile.

So when Google announced its new Android mobile operating system, was anyone really surprised? Well, yes, actually – as Google doesn’t really do operating systems (or great software for that matter) – but handheld computing is the new It Girl, and everyone is rushing to bring her flowers. So why not Google?Fast forward several months to yesterday, when the first device featuring Google’s Android platform, the HTC G1, was finally revealed to the world. Me, I had an immediate and undeniable “Uh oh” moment. Yes, the hardware looks homely and clunky and outdated right out of the box, but I had seen “leaked” photos of the device already, so I was already prepared for that letdown. But looking past the ugly hardware in the promo pics, my eyes immediately went to a single element: that huge, Vista-esque analog clock haphazardly placed on the screen.

My brain instantly asked itself two things.

First, “What’s up with the big, ugly clock?”

And second (and more importantly), “Why does the big, ugly clock say 9:11 when the digital clock immediately above it and to its right says 2:47???”

Now, I consider it a personal curse to obsess over what some would consider meaningless details (typos on my blog notwithstanding). So I tried putting this inconsistency out of my mind. “Self,” I said, “it doesn’t matter. No one else cares. You’re just being you again.”

But then Gizmodo noticed. And if Gizmodo noticed, then perhaps countless others did too (with many more noticing, obviously, because Gizmodo pointed it out). Which leads to the obvious question: “How could Google/T-Mobile/HTC not notice this too???” I mean, typos in body text on a website or in a brochure are bad enough. But for the G1 to throw aside the curtain and step, arms outstretched, into the blazing spotlight, under the anxious gaze of a billion curious souls, with its fly wide open and toilet paper stuck to its shoe? Inconceivable! Yet, there it was, for all the world to see.

The issue therein was so aptly described by Jesus Diaz of Gizmodo:

The problem with the clocks would have never escaped Apple’s ferocious attention to detail, but it is not the image itself that’s so troubling. It is what it symbolizes, what is missing at Android’s most fundamental level: Attention to detail. 

“Ferocious attention to detail.” A beautiful phrase. And a rule we should all live by. How many times have you seen a big, important PowerPoint presentation featuring a glaring typo on the title screen? (With much audience forehead smacking ensuing.) Had such a thing as the Google G1 faux pas happened when the iPhone was announced, Steve Jobs would have had a public hanging of the employees responsible. Right there. On the stage. On that you can set your watch and warrant (whatever that quaint old saying means).

Equally perplexing is the fact that despite this glitch being publicly outed by Gizmodo last night, T-Mobile hasn’t scrambled to rectify the situation on its website. At least not as of the time of this writing. Which to me implies that they don’t see it as a problem at all. Which in itself is yet another problem. And now I’m rambling.

Lest you think I’m making a mountain of a molehill, Diaz does point out other obvious Android interface problems. Alas, it’s not just the clock. Though the clock is bad enough to be alarming. (Heh, unintentional pun!)

As I mentioned in my Judging a Book By Its Cover post, the problem with prominent, glaring flaws like this is that they imply a legion of other, less-glaring flaws lurking slightly below the surface. And they convey an “I don’t really care what you think” mentality. Whether true or not.

How many eLearning courses have you seen featuring such spectacularly visible errors that you naturally asked “Did anyone actually read this thing before publishing?” Some of them may have even been yours.

God is indeed, as Ludwig Mies van der Rohe so succinctly put it, in the details.

Sidenote: a friend of mine who has been singing Android’s praises for months, boldly proclaiming it the true “iPhone Killer,” called me last night to ask how much I thought he could find a used iPhone for, and how he could hack it to run on his T-Mobile plan.

Ouch.

Google, you lost them at “Hello.”

Anyone who has ever taken an eLearning course or watched a PowerPoint presentation (i.e. all of us) knows that the effective use of color is not a common human ability. Based on countless cans of unused interior house paint I have chosen with much deliberation, only to become horrified once I actually put the paint on the wall, I can attest to this assumption.

Fortunately, there are tools available to compensate for these shortcomings. Adobe Kuler comes to mind. Create your own color theme for your eLearning course with the online tools, or choose from thousands of themes created (and rated) by design professionals.

Best of all, it’s free.

And Adobe TV even offers a short (and also free) how-to video for Kuler.

Now there’s no excuse for offensive color combinations in your eLearning courses.

Helpful hint: unless you’re designing a Christmas card, red + green = NO.

The debate rages whether Apple’s iPhone is as revolutionary a device as Apple claims it to be – with certain feature omissions (copy/paste and MMS being the two most-often mentioned) providing plenty of fuel for criticism.

Less open to debate is the point that the iPhone offers what is probably the most beautiful user interface on any electronic device to date. Even the most rabid iPhone haters tend to concede that the software and the large, super-responsive touchscreen provide an immensely enjoyable way in which to interact with the device, and Apple’s competitors are scrambling to cobble up their own “less offensive than before” interfaces. Including HTC’s valiant “pay no attention to the Windows Mobile behind the curtain” TouchFLO paint job.

For the sake of this post, let’s assume my “iPhone’s most beautiful interface” argument is legitimate. So say you’re about to roll out a new app to millions of interface-conscious iPhone users who have been wowed by its beautiful visual design. You hope this new app, though inexpensively priced, will net you a handsome profit via the magical power of volume. How do you make your critical first impression? Why, you have an 8-year-old design your icon and splash screen in Microsoft Paint, of course!

Now, I won’t speak for you, but I’ll tell you exactly what this visual design mess tells me: the developer doesn’t care one whit what I think about him or his app. And it tells me (whether accurately or not) that he probably spent as much time working on the functionality of the app as he spent on its visual presentation. Which is to say, not much.

He couldn’t even decide whether the title of his app deserved proper capitalization (my opinion: no).

Worth my time or my measly 99 cents? Not a chance.

Frankly, the vast amount of shovelware/crapware that is suddenly flooding the iTunes App Store is disconcerting to me, to say the least. There are a great many brilliantly designed, powerful, and beautiful apps available (BeatMaker being a stunning example). Particularly for the App Store being a mere two months old. But for every one of those, there are ten (or more) that may have been fit for the Windows 3.1 world, but are not even remotely in the same star system as the iPhone world. I had high hopes that the iPhone would bring beautiful design to the masses. But instead, the masses are bringing their horrific design to the iPhone.

You can judge a book by its cover. What does the visual design of your eLearning courses tell your learners?

I stand by my claim that the iPhone will revolutionize mobile eLearning. But not if your mobile eLearning looks anything like Car Finder (or Car finder, natch).

Sidenote: had I been the App Store reviewer who received this submission from the developer, I would have rejected it. Immediately. With extreme prejudice.

I strongly believe that good presentation design and understanding good eLearning design are two sides of the same coin. If you’re horrible at one, you’ll probably fail at the other. And if you have a firm grasp on one, you’ll probably excel at the other. Sure, there are some technical differences between the two delivery methods, but ultimately they are two similar means to the same end: conveying a message or imparting information to your viewer.

Personally, for eLearning development, I find more value in studying good presentation design than I do in studying good eLearning design. Why? Because there seem to be more folks out there sharing their knowledge about good presentation design than there are sharing good eLearning design. Which is slightly baffling to me, as we’ve all been exposed (overexposed?) to more than our fair share of horrible presentations and eLearning.

So why should presentations get all the meds when eLearning is just as ill?

I’ve mentioned Presentation Zen before, which is one of my favorite blogs (hence its spot in my blogroll). Garr Reynolds does a fantastic job in his efforts to purge the world of horrible visual presentations.

Nancy Duarte (slide:ology) and Cliff Atkinson (Beyond Bullet Points) deserve equal attention. Nancy’s new book slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations (which shares the name of her blog, which is also going on my blogroll), should be on the must-buy list of every eLearning developer.

Too many eLearning developers’ bookshelves are filled with thick tomes on adult learning theory and precious few (if any) on how to really visually communicate information to your learner. And that needs to change.

I often get requests for visual timelines in eLearning courses. Typically I’ll try to cobble something together using PowerPoint’s charting or drawing tools (shudder). Sometimes I’ll create the timeline in Apple’s Keynote (much nicer charting tools) and bring the graphic into PowerPoint (since I do most of my development work in Articulate Presenter). I’ve also created timelines from scratch using something like Adobe Fireworks, which can be a time-consuming endeavor.

Timeline from Bee Documents looks like an interesting application. Whip up a beautiful timeline in a matter of minutes? Yes please! The 3D version looks particularly intriguing (and visually stunning).

Ah, this is what I love about my cross-platform setup at home (iMac + VMWare Fusion + Windows XP). Easy access to the best and brightest apps, regardless of the platform.

Give Timeline a look. Better yet, download the free trial. And the prices are reasonable enough to pay for themselves in time saved in a course or two.

OS X only (sorry, WinPeeps).

CollegeHumor portrays fonts as people in this hilarious (for the visual design lovers out there) spoof, Font Conference.

As dedicated supporters of the eQuixotic cause, you are by now familiar with the historical impact of font design, including the subtle complexities of typography, and how to find appealing fonts for your eLearning projects.

I plead with you now, for the love of all that’s holy: purge Comic Sans from your eLearning projects.

My brain has learned to disregard any information presented in Comic Sans. With extreme prejudice.

And rightfully so.

This may be old news to some of you, but I had never seen it before it was presented at a training conference I attended last week. Not only is the message thought-provoking, but the visual design is extremely compelling. This is nothing more than a PowerPoint-like presentation set to music. Yet it’s more effective than 99.9% of the PowerPoint presentations you’ll see.

If only most of the eLearning I’ve been subjected to were this efficient…

Eight minutes well spent.