When starting a new e-learning project, it can be intimidating to think about creating your own interface.  There always seems to be a never-ending stream of questions:

• Where do I begin? 

• How do I get buy in from my stakeholders? 

• Is this going to resonate with the end user? 

I think many times because the questions are too daunting, the final content is developed to fit into a certain template. At ASTD 2014 TechKnowledge, I will cover how to start prototyping your interface so developers can get stakeholder buy-in early in the project process.

Prototyping made easy

Don’t be intimidated by prototyping. Common office supplies can be used to build a very crude prototype to show to key stakeholders—and possibly even a few end users how the interface will function. The great thing about doing this type of prototyping is that they can be changed very quickly, making it easy to go through many iterations in just a few minutes. 

You can then build out that early design into a more refined digital prototype that you can distribute to a larger group of end users to obtain early feedback before you have spent anytime coding a final version. This type of user feedback is invaluable in developing final designs that will really resonate with the user community at large. 

You see, there is a ying-and-yang with the content and the presentation of the content. We can have the best content in the world, but if the presentation is bad, we could lose the end user. 

When the interface is hard to use or the material is difficult to find, the end user could tune out and lose this wonderful content. If you have the opportunity to watch the user use the interface you can gain valuable feedback as to how they are using the interface. You can also watch facial expressions to see if certain portions of the interface are confusing.  

After receiving user feedback, you can take the prototype a step further and apply some final elements before presenting it again to key stakeholders. You can then focus on colors, styles, and so forth to finish the look of the interface and content presentation. The final prototype can be built into the production interface. While this sounds like a lot of work, most of these prototypes can be built very quickly. 

If you have questions please feel free to track me down at ASTD 2014 TechKnowledge in Las Vegas. This will be my first ASTD event, so I am very much looking forward to connecting with other professionals and to see what is going on in the industry.