This interactive Storyline eLearning microlearning was designed to help raise awareness of common office items people might not realize are recyclable. The company it was for is not real, but it is still a useful little informational tool with information on common office recycling items that show up in recycling audits!
Context: I made the original in response to a case study prompt as I wanted to try and make an interactive quiz. I decided to make a company name and logo as well, as those weren’t provided in the brief prompt.
Responsibilities: Research, Content Development, Analysis, Storyboarding, Instructional Design, eLearning Design
Tools Used: Articulate Storyline, 7taps, Canva, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe XD
Date Completed: October 18, 2022
Microlearning Sample: Office Recycling (Hypothetical)
About the Project
The Project: I enjoyed making the initial version of this as well as the subsequent “glow up” and it is a practical microlearning that uses low stakes “quizzing” to actually teach an idea—a technique I love for microlearning! I added a 7taps as a “thought exercise” when reflecting on microlearning and thinking “Does this need to be a Storyline?” which I answered with, “Well, it’s complicated…”
My Skills: This is hypothetical but was submitted as an eLearning Heroes sample and made into a blog post to showcase development skills and design thinking respectively. The “glow up” was a good chance to manipulate illustrated graphics, as I enjoy editing graphics but often work in photographic styles at work. I’m hoping to do some xAPI practice with this sample. More on that coming soon!
This project was thought exercise — first a “glow up” in Storyline and then a 7taps to compare the two experiences in delivering learning and gathering xAPI data points.
Design Process
Analysis Phase (Hypothetical)
Background: A recent Covanta survey of 2000 Americans said that 62% of respondents were not sure which items might be recyclable (Waste360 Staff, 2019). Therefore, my thinking was that many companies might struggle with this issue.
Learner Profile: This learning solution needs to be translatable to Spanish and other languages. It needs to work for a diverse general audience, including a wide array of office workers and warehouse fulfillment workers.
Problem/Solution: Wallers Industries (fictional company) has a recycling initiative that has not been very successful per the latest data from a recycling audit. In this scenario, the employees know where the recycling bins are and generally recycle paper items and soda cans. However, they are not recycling other items they could be recycling, such as cardboard boxes, light bulbs, printer cartridges, etc. This suggests a knowledge gap in what can and should be recycled rather than a lack of motivation to recycle. In this hypothetical scenario, the employees do know where and how to recycle and actively recycle other materials.
Learning Goal: Employees will be able to identify common office items that can be recycled and will begin recycling them instead of throwing them away in the trash. The focus goal was on improving outcomes for three particular items in the next recycling audit: cardboard boxes, printer cartridges, and light bulbs. (Research revealed these as three of the most common items that are thrown away in error per recycling audits.)
Measurement Planning: The company could measure the microlearning itself through xAPI in either Storyline (actual version) or 7Taps (see alternate version). Small quizzes on Slack or via email could also be measured to check knowledge later. For behavioral change, managers can conduct audits to check recycling behaviors by department. Finally, the organizational goal can be measured quarterly by company recycling audits. The goal is that they will indicate 95-100% of materials are recycled.
Design & Development
This is actually a redesign of a very early Storyline sample I designed. I decided to “glow up” the graphics and interactions with sounds, custom feedback layers, and graphics edited with Canva and Adobe Illustrator, giving it a less “PowerPoint” vibe and more an intentional design look, I hope!
That prompted the thought, “Should this be a Storyline at all?” which was a complex question I mused on in the blog:
Note: The 7taps is no longer available, due to the subscription lapsing (not paying for 7taps).
No one is going to implement this at Wallers because it’s not real, but it could be rolled out without an LMS if you wanted, since it could track the learners via xAPI in a web file or in 7Taps directly if you went with that sample. Implementation would be more about the evaluation: Are learners completing the quiz? Are they doing better on subsequent quiz activities if we send it 30 or 60 days later or do a fun check in Slack?
How Could They Implement?
But the big thing is evaluation: Managers should measure and use the same auditing checklist that the audits use for these key items. Are they being recycled?
Level 1 (Reaction) and Level 2 (Learning): This can be conducted with before and after surveys. The "before" survey can essentially contain the 3rd question from the "after" survey as a pretest to the microlearning exercise.
Sample survey prototype in Google Workspace: After Survey
Level 3 (Behavior): Site managers can conduct weekly checks on varying days of the trash/recycling areas to simulate the recycling audits and determine if there has been a change in behavior. The checklist should examine recycling waste of these items in the training.
Level 4 (Results): The recycling audit, conducted quarterly, will determine the success of the training.
Evaluation
Credits & Resources
Images in this project were sourced from paid subscriptions to Canva and Adobe free images. Sounds were purchased from ZapSplat to support the quiz design. Tools used to produce this learning were all properly licensed.
References
Clean River Staff. (2021, January 7). 10 tips to increase your office recycling. CleanRiver. Retrieved January 20, 2022, from https://cleanriver.com/blog-tips-increase-office-recycling/
Waste360 Staff. (2019, April 23). Covanta survey: "Americans don't know how to recycle". Waste360. Retrieved from https://www.waste360.com/recycling/covanta-survey-americans-don-t-know-how-recycle