Can You Nurture Our Plants?
Designed specifically for Horticulturists, Nursery employees, and newcomers in the nursery setting, this eLearning project revolves around real-life scenarios. Its purpose is to acquaint individuals with pesticides and facilitate decision-making practices within the context of standard operating procedures and safety measures.
Target Audience: Horticulturists, Nursery Employees, New Hires.
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Roles: Instructional design, eLearning development, Visual design, Graphic design, and mock-ups.
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Utilized Tools: Articulate Storyline 360, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Figma, Miro, Google Docs, and Mid Journey.
Problem And Solution
A Local nursery and horticulture company approached me when their employees faced issues with pesticide procedures and safety practices. The hectic end-of-day rush, coupled with neglecting standard operating procedures, led to injuries, product losses, and setbacks in revenue.
Acknowledging a gap in basic pesticide knowledge and adherence to critical safety protocols., the client enlisted my expertise to create a learning solution for both new and existing team members.
I suggested an eLearning program driven by real-life scenarios, allowing employees to navigate decisions in actual nursery situations and observe consequences in a low-risk environment.
Process
For this project, I teamed up with the Chief Horticulturist, our subject matter expert (SME), to craft an action map, setting the foundation for a text-based storyboard. After establishing the visual style using Mid Journey, Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe Illustrator, I generated mock-ups in Figma for approval.
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While awaiting approval on the visual storyboard, I kicked off the prototype in Articulate Storyline. After receiving client feedback on the prototype, I finalized the project in Storyline, implementing necessary adjustments to meet their requirements.
Action Map
After exploring the challenges and potential solutions in our initial conversation, I turned to the Chief Horticulturist (SME) within the organization for guidance.
Together, we identified specific actions that were frequently mishandled. With their valuable input, I developed an action map, highlighting inadequate knowledge and safety concerns as primary focal points.
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Text-Based Storyboard
Working closely with the SME, we identified four critical pain points within the daily nursery procedures, frequently leading to accidents, product loss, and injuries
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Neglected Handling of Pesticides:
Hasty departures at the end of the day contributed to the careless abandonment of pesticides and improper storage practices.
Outcomes: Injuries due to contamination and accidents resulting in damaged products.
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Understanding of Pesticides:
Either overconfidence or a lack of experience led to challenges in comprehending various pesticides and their intended uses.
Outcomes: Damaged products and revenue loss.
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Personal Protective Equipment:
Efforts to save time resulted in employees hastily applying pesticides without proper PPE, often with confusion regarding the correct equipment.
Outcomes: Injuries due to contamination.
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Cleanup Procedures:
Rushed departures caused insufficient cleanup of work areas and improper pesticide storage.
Outcomes: Injuries from contamination and accidents leading to damaged products.
Every decision and outcome in this scenario-based eLearning program is anchored in the identified pain points derived from the Chief Horticulturist's experiences over the past year.
Visual Mockups
Opting for Figma's agility in swiftly tweaking elements compared to Articulate Storyline, I fashioned visual mock-ups.
This approach facilitated multiple rounds of refining the project's visual aesthetics, commencing with a wireframe for layout clarity.
Introducing a background scene and mentor character, Kelly, to the scenario added depth.
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Initial background variations were explored to address contrast concerns, culminating in the selection of the optimal one. The exploration extended to color schemes and alignment adjustments, continuing until achieving client approval.
Visual Storyboard
Once the main visual design was in place, I combined the text-based storyboard seamlessly with the visuals to create a thorough visual storyboard. This included embedding programming notes and incorporating all the essential files required for the project.
Interactive Prototype
To assess project functionality and gather initial feedback before full development, I crafted an interactive prototype. I completed slides up to the third pain point and shared them both with the SME and a group of learners unfamiliar with nursery environments.
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The primary feedback centered around the interactive drag-and-drop section, especially in identifying examples of PPE. Users lacking nursery backgrounds found it challenging to differentiate between various types of PPE.
Responding to this insight, a mentor-driven help section, explaining distinct forms of PPE, was integrated and programmed into separate buttons.
Full Development
One particularly noteworthy element of this project that I took pride in:
My goal was to implement a feature that would introduce a flashing effect on the initial slide when unveiling the "Ask Kelly" button. This was strategically designed to captivate users' attention. Moreover, the same flashing effect would be utilized at the project's conclusion to signify its successful completion.
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To actualize this concept, I created two shape objects with motion path animations. Interestingly, these objects were strategically positioned off-slide to generate a pulsing effect. The images on the slide requiring a flashing effect were then triggered to alternate between hidden and normal states. This transition was synchronized with the continuous motion loop of the shape objects, resulting in the desired flashing effect.
The Takeaway
Throughout the project, I enhanced my skills in Articulate Storyline, Figma, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, and visual design.
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One challenge I faced was finding the right visual balance on slides and aligning elements for a smooth flow. It took multiple tries before achieving the desired visual design for the eLearning experience.
Using Figma for visual mock-ups streamlined my workflow compared to working directly in Articulate Storyline. This experience highlighted an area for improvement, encouraging a more intentional approach to visual design in future projects.