eLearning & Interactivities
It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.
Interactive Sales Simulator
These branched simulations were delivered in a custom mobile app and were designed to give the sales staff the opportunity to try sales techniques in a safe and failure tolerant environment.
Because sales personnel on the floor had limited time leaning, the simulations were designed to be completed in less than 10 minutes. Conditional branching with multiple possible endings and a scoring system created replay value, coaching opportunities by management, and opportunities for team competition.
Additionally, both the content and the branching structure was tied into a competency- and product-based classification system and taxonomy to allow for eventual integration into an adaptive and personalized learning path.
I created the concept, wrote the initial simulation content, and designed the scoring model. As part of the process I also designed a visual flowchart-style language—built in Omnigraffle—for building the conversation flows so the content could be more easily reviewed and debugged by stakeholders.
“A Fork in the Road” Sales Stories
The scenarios in these interactive stories revolved around common errors that were reported from the field.
In Connect with Clyde, the first sales doesn’t succeed because Derek the salesperson focuses on Edgar, the nephew, who is a bit of a know-it-all and Clyde—the actual customer—is largely ignored.
Frustrated that his needs aren’t being considered and that he’s being excluded from the conversation, Clyde leaves and the sale is lost.
After the rewind, Derek practices effective need-finding with Clyde and he determines that the best choice for him isn’t what Edgar insisting he buys.
Feeling both listened to and confident that the features described to him will actually be useful, Clyde decides to buy a new phone, and even adds a couple of accessories to the basket.
Micro Learning: Sales Stories
These mLearning modules were designed to reinforce sales skills in a story-based format intended to demonstrate and model the techniques, rather than simply describe them.
Though linear, most of the stories were structured around a “cautionary tale” model that started by showing a failure, and then a “replay” of the same scenario with minor changes that ends in success.
While scrolling through the description portion of the story, users are invited to see “What Happens Next” and tap though a conversation sequence between customer and sales person.
The view then switches from portrait to landscape, and the user is able to swipe through a brief conversation between customer and sales person.
This process unfolds through two scenes, with reflection text after the initial failure outlining what when wrong and what the salesperson might have done differently. Each story ends in success with the reasons clearly called out in debrief text.
Sales Story Comics (Prototype)
This prototype used a comic book style design and a branched structure to show a day-in-the-life of a sales associate.
Users would make choices at key points in the story, some with negative consequences and others with positive ones. Unlike the sims, the structure was not conditional and proceeded along static and pre-designed routes.
However, the user’s choice did have some impact, as there were several possible endings. Not only did this provide replayability, it also created possibilities for on the floor coaching by senior sales staff or managers, where the less successful endings could provide a context for debriefing and reinforcement conversations.
The static branched structure was chosen to help with production scalability, as story authors and editors would not have to debug a complex conditional system and could focus on issues of quality and content accuracy.
MicroLearning: Sales Chats
This prototype was an experiment to deliver samples of everyday problems faced by customers, and modeled examples of how one might address or troubleshoot them. The idea was to deliver content in an easy-to-consume format for sales personnel on the retail floor.
The stories themselves were intended to be short, simple, and centered on common problems that we were hearing from the field.
A secondary function was to provide users with an ongoing view into the lives of the customers at the heart of the stories. For example, users might encounter Josephine in a Sales Simulation and then later in this chat story. The aim was to increase engagement, but to also demonstrate how a customer’s needs could evolve over time.
Mobile Learning Games: Needs vs. Values
This simple quiz game was designed as a review and reinforcement activity, delivered within a mobile training app after the user had completed introductory materials that covered the difference between a customer’s needs and values.
Each level is timed—reflected in the color bar at the bottom of the screen, and details on each question are displayed at the end of the game.
The statements were both anticipated and sourced from SMEs who had direct on-floor experience.
These games were self-contained interactions, but were intended to be consumed as part of a overall learning plan where the specifics of customer needs and values were covered previously in other mLearning modules or in the classroom.