Lessons Learnt from Developing an Online Learning System

For the past few months of my life I’ve been working as a Web Editor for an online learning system. The job role was quite specific, but I became involved with a lot more of the project than I originally thought I would do, so I thought I’d document some of the issues we encountered in the hope that others can learn from them. Here are the main points I learnt from the project:

Build From the User Backwards

Upon joining the project it quickly became apparent that the entire project and its many separate areas were all being worked on at the same time, by separate teams, without much direct consideration of the end goal. Some projects may be able to run like this, but for an online learning system the approach should be more structured and really focus on the actual end goal: to teach people a subject using a website. It is essential to any new online project to work from the end user backwards. I can’t think of a situation whereby this wouldn’t be appropriate. Keep usability in mind at all times.

Write Content that makes sense for the web

During this project I was pretty much the last person to see and review learning content, and the only person to enter it into the learning site. Essentially I was one of the last people in the ‘chain of command’ to receive content, yet one of the only people who actually knew how the CMS worked and what could be entered properly. You see what I’m getting at here. What should have happened is that rather than have content passed down to me, I should have worked directly with the learning module developers before they even started writing, to create something that was formatted and written directly with the end user in mind. And this isn’t just to big up content editors! It just makes sense.

It’s an online system. Think of the best ways in which learning works online

Seems obvious. The content that was developed for our system was written by academics, and it was clear that there was no real technical considerations from them. Which is fair enough, how could they be expected to know what to consider when they hadn’t been told? It is important that the people who are writing the learning content understand the basics of the technology being used, so that they are aware of what can be made more interactive and how this impacts on the learner. Informing authors of really simple things such as why YouTube videos may not remain reliable permanently and problems with using copyrighted images will save a lot of hassle in the future.

Make it accessible

Accessibility shouldn’t just be something that the Web Editors and developers are doing. Everyone who develops learning content should be taught at least the basics of accessibility. For instance something so simple as teaching the importance of image descriptions could make a massive difference to overall accessibility, whilst removing extra work for content editors.

Use online collaboration tools.

I honestly don’t know how we got on without using these. I suppose the problem we had was the team were used to using the usual suspects (Outlook, Excel, physical notebooks etc) and to change people to using online collaborative tools would have only been successful if implemented from the very start. With a project going through continual change, something to monitor changes and todos would have made a massive difference and speeded up the planning side of things, as well as providing a solid reporting system. With everyone using old school organisation, it almost felt like we were working against each other.

Develop a clear style guide

This is really important and links in with the point about writing content for the web. Consistency is key here; the style guide should have clear guidelines for authors and web editors so that every page follows a strict style. Fonts should be the same, picture sizes if possible, and placement of interactive elements should be the same, to maintain easy navigation for users.

I could have gone into a lot more detail, but I think the obvious lessons learned here are often the ones that get overlooked. If you’re starting out a new online learning project, get in touch and I’d be happy to go into more detail.

Sightseers & The Future of my Blog

From now on I'm going to be posting less and less about film and other subjects, and more and more about digital marketing & technology. This isn't because my interests in other subjects is dwindling, it's just because I get a lot more views on the posts about tech and marketing than I do on anything else. And a blog with more of a niche will always serve a more clear purpose, whilst also allowing me to focus on just those subjects and learn more.

Before I do this I just wanted to recommend that you watch 'Sightseers'. I haven't seen a more entertaining and downright odd film in quite some time. The main characters are absolutely wonderful, and it's British dark humour at its best.

SEO Job Hunting Advice - Learn from my Experience

I've recently been looking at moving further into Search Engine Optimisation as a career choice. I have digital marketing experience and am currently a web editor, but I'd like to really get into SEO and become more of an expert in the area to really focus my career on one subject. And it’s the sort of thing I’ll get obsessed with, which is good (I think!) Only problem is I don’t have any experience. Which is where the ‘entry level’ jobs come in. They give graduates and others with less experience the chance to join a company with a structured training scheme provided.

So I had a successful application for an Account Assistant last week, but unfortunately I didn’t get the job. However, I had to do an initial interview and also a second interview as a 20 minute presentation with Q&A, which both went well and I learned a load on the way. So here are the main points I noticed from the process, for future reference for myself and also others looking to get into search marketing with little experience.

Be able to show passion for all things digital. The interviewers loved the fact that I’m active on social media, I blog about things I love, and have taken it into my own hands to keep up to date with the latest developments in digital marketing. It really does create great conversation, and shows that you are willing to learn about the area you’re attempting to work in off your own back.

Be as technical as possible. I’d always been interested in SEO, but the first interview was a disaster when it came to the technical side of things. Although the jobs are entry level, you should always be able to demonstrate knowledge of the important parts of the industry such as the terms used, the tools used and the influential figures.

Keep ROI in mind at all times. This point was made clear to me by the lovely folk at the SEO Hangout Panel community on Google+ who have helped me out a hell of alot recently! ROI is really important. After all the main goal of an agency is to generate profit for their clients. So all your discussion about SEO should bear ROI in mind. One of the challenges I had was to explain how social media & brand awareness has a measurable impact on ROI, but that’s a matter for a separate post entirely!

Know what to measure and how. This relates to the last point. I think if there was one thing about my presentation that wasn’t so strong, it was the measurables. I concentrated a lot on the on-page optimisation, keywords and link building, but not enough on reporting metrics. Yes I would increase the amount of long-tail keywords ranked for, but how would I communicate the effectiveness of these to the client? And also the cost. Obviously I had no idea of the clients budget, but it would have helped to even have a guess at the budget and predict some figures, to show a more analytical mindset too. This excellent article by Raven Tools is helpful for reporting metrics.

Incentives. Incentives! I completely missed this one out. If you’re creating a link building strategy, this should always be a big one. I mentioned it not once, until I was asked and couldn’t answer properly. Why would people want to take the time to link to the site in question? And it’s not always money...

So keep these in mind when applying for SEO. I know I will on my continued job hunt... and I’m sure I’ll be able to add many more points to this list in the near future!

This was the last slide of my presentation; a list of the SEO tools I'd used to audit the site. 

Google Keep Initial Impressions

So Keep is official and launched. It looks really great, I love the idea of quickly colouring your notes, and the interface is much cleaner than Evernote or even Wunderlist, and certainly a hell of a lot cooler than Scratchpad. In fact, the browser based interface https://drive.google.com/keep/ just looks amazing. Simple, immediately understandable and very fast.

But what first strikes me is that this product seems to be best for Google users only. I realise that Google will eventually release it everywhere (as they are planning to do with a lot of products i.e Google Now) but how long will it take them? People are so used to Evernote that it'll be hard to switch, which will be made much worse if the users of Evernote are on iOS devices or a phone with a version of Android lower than 4.0.

I would love to start using this app regularly, especially considering it runs so quickly on my Chromebook (compared to Evernote which is extremely sluggish) but I feel like it's another burden on my already fragmented productivity apps.

Hopefully it'll get better and more compatible quickly. But for now, I'll stick with Evernote. I hope you're listening Google.

Christopher Nolan's 'Following'

I'd never heard of this film until a few days ago. If you haven't seen it it's certainly worth a watch. Interesting to see the huge difference between this and his recent stuff like Inception. Great to see how budget constraints can affect film writing in a good way. Every great director has to start somewhere, and this is a pretty cool film.

Why I love Google+

The past few weeks has seen me pretty much turn back into a Google fanboy again.

I strayed away from their products and services when I got my Macbook Pro and iPhone, as I was using the inbuilt email clients instead. But let’s face it, the native Apple mail can’t compete with Gmail, and the iPhone app looks gorgeous. With this I started using Google+ again, and joined some great communities.

These communities are essentially like every other forum/social network ‘group’, but with a few added features. However it’s not really the functionality of the groups that’s great; it’s the level of engagement. Ask a question on the Chromebooks group and there’s an answer in minutes. Drop into the Nexus group and see a bunch of geeky guys positing their awesome homescreen layouts, with a ton of comments to follow. There’s no spam, no (serious) trolling, no fake accounts, just a bunch of people with the same interests, genuinely engaging in interesting conversation.

I would say Google+ is the only social network available with this level of quality engagement. I use Twitter a lot, and still think it’s great, but the conversation isn't quite as complex due to the character limitations, and there are a ton of people who are just collecting followers and are totally disengaged. I only really use Facebook when I want to see fountains of shit spewing from my news feed, it’s a joke how bad it’s become.

So get on Google+, search for your interests on the ‘Communities’ section and start chatting, or even set up your own community.

Update: in one day, this post has 7 shares, over 20 comments and 54 +1's (and counting) from Google+. Twitter and Facebook have had no engagement.

My Initial Impressions of the Samsung Chromebook

I recently purchased a Samsung Series 3 Chromebook. The hype round the Pixel and the general love for the devices from the Chromebook G+ community encouraged me, and they're only £230. I've been using it for a week now, for work and play, so here are my initial impressions.

The screen is just lovely. I use a Macbook Pro most the time, so coming from that glossy display was strange at first; I was sort of thinking 'what the hell is this matte piece of crap??' when I turned the Chromebook on, but it's actually a much nicer viewing experience when using it in bright environments and for long periods of time.

The search button is glorious! Why don't all computers have this dedicated key? I don't miss caps lock at all (and you can alt + search for caps anyways).

It's ridiculously simple. Obviously I knew this before I bought it, but it isn't until you start using a Chromebook that your realise just how stripped down everything is. In a good way. This is certainly the future of computers, I know it would be much easier for most people to use, no messing around, just get on with what you have to do in the browser.

It takes ages to bring up the wifi login screens. Most the wifi networks I use outside of home need to launch a page in the browser first to login. My Mac, iPhone and Nexus devices just bring this up right after you connect. The Chromebook has, for me, taken up to a minute to load this - really annoying.

The touchpad is pretty naff. It scrolls really nicely with 2 fingers, but the accuracy of it is noticeably poor. 2 finger touch is right click though, a nice feature from Mac which works well.

The keyboard is just brilliant. It is seriously the nicest keyboard I've ever used. It feels a little cheap at first, but the sound it makes and the way the keys feel is just perfect. Maybe it has something to do with the layout or size, I'm not sure really, but it just seems like the only keyboard I ever want to type on ever again.

It's fast, really fast. Some apps are terrible compared to their native Windows and Mac versions (Evernote for instance) so you do get slowed down now and again, but in general it's lightning quick. 7 second boot? Yes please.

The sound is crazy loud for a device this size. It's actually louder than my Macbook Pro, although not as good quality.

That's it for now, I'll be posting a proper review once I've gotten some use out of it.

Productivity over many operating systems

I've recently turned to the dark side and started using Apple products again. I bought a Macbook Pro and naturally an iPhone followed (because I'm a pretentious dick like that, really). However I've still kept my Nexus 7 because I love the damn thing (and what else am I going use to read the first 5 pages of a book I may or may not buy?) and at work I am forced to use a Windows 7 machine. 

This means trying to balance my personal and work life over 4 computers, and use Microsoft, Apple and Google in a way that they all play nicely. So, after using many apps and web apps and cloud this and that, I've stuck with 3 that play best.

Wunderlist, Evernote & Google Drive.

Wunderlist, as the name suggests, is Wunderful (sorry). It's a todo list, but has its own sync service which requires only a very fast registration. It's available on Mac, Android and iOS as an app, and you can use it on a desktop PC via a Chrome app or just by logging onto the site. What I like most about Wunderlist is that the design is extremely consistent throughout all devices, to the point that even the wallpaper of the app syncs (sounds lame, but try it, it's really cool). The todo lists are as simple as the Apple Reminders app, but they have more sneaky features like adding sub tasks and repeating tasks as often as you like. Add in the fact that the lists can be shared, and you have yourself a pretty slick project management tool. And I should probably mention it's completely free. 

I'm sure I don't have to bang on about Evernote too much, you've probably heard of it already. I used it a while back but got annoyed with waiting for everything to sync and notes being unavailable without connection. The Evernote team seem to have sorted all that out now, and the apps for Android and iOS are just stunning. It's much faster than it used to be too. For meetings, the document capture mode is perfect, and the sharing options almost always result in others following suit. £3.99 a month for the paid version, but it's well worth it.

Google Drive is essentially Dropbox with balls on. I've blabbed on about it before, but it really is just so reliable. My Macbook isn't connected to the network at work, so Drive has proved extremely useful. I believe I pay $2.49 p/m for 25GB of storage; an absolute bargain. No more messing around with USB pen drives.

Using these three services has turned me into one organised badass (nerd), and juggling 2 projects at work and many out of work has become a breeze. 

Would I miss Facebook if I deleted my account?

A friend of mine recently deleted their Facebook account, which at first seemed strange, but I'm wondering if it would be such a bad thing to delete mine too?

I've been using Facebook for the longest of all the popular social networks (Myspace doesn't count!) and it started off as just me sharing and talking with my good friends. Facebook has always had a kind of closed feel to it though, unlike Twitter, and so as the friends list grows; the more reluctant you are to share personal information or photos, and the social becomes anti-social.

It also seems that the more I share on Facebook, the less people it reaches. Facebook are really messing with their algorithms recently and it's bad news for individuals, but even worse for small businesses. Getting heard is hard, and paid promotion will only make Facebook more of a big brand experience, something which I really don't want my news feed clogged up with. It's a dangerous game they're playing, but with a billion users, unfortunately, they can afford to play it.

Aside from my pictures, I wouldn't loose much of value except the contact with friends who I don't have any other means of contacting. But even the contact with those friends happens rarely, and it seems like much more of my time on Facebook is spent wasted than put to good use, and this can only get worse.

Obsessed With: Alt-J

Apologies to those I've already bombarded with Tweets about this band! Just in case you haven't heard Alt-J yet; listen to them now. I'd recommend downloading the album, it's the best, freshest and damn cool I've heard in quite some time. Properly obsessed with them at the moment.