• Audience: Everyday consumers buying and using cleaning products

• Responsibilities: Instructional Designer, eLearning Development, Action Mapping, Visual Design, Storyboard, and Mockups

• Tools Used: Articulate Storyline 360, Figma, Mindmeister, Coolors, Google Docs, Freepix

Problem and Solution

This fictitious Nationwide Nonprofit has not been able to successfully get information to the public in a way that resonates with them in real world applications and is therefore hindering the sales of natural cleaning products over commercial name branded products.  Data from surveys revealed a lack of awareness among consumers, resulting in impulsive purchases of well-known brands with potentially adverse effects. It was determined this problem is due to a lack of knowledge of the harsh chemicals associated with cleaning products and the effects they cause on one's health. 

After defining the problem and determining this is due to a lack of knowledge, I proposed an engaging scenario-based story-driven eLearning experience. This immersive journey would empower consumers to make risk-free choices while comprehending the consequences of using mainstream cleaning products. As a result, this would increase awareness and sales for natural cleaning products. Additionally, I suggested a comprehensive online and printable knowledge base, offering quick access to alternative natural and non-toxic cleaning options. This is not shown in this experience as the nonprofits main problem was not being able to resonate with the public. 

Text Based Storyboard

I created a text-based storyboard to serve as the blueprint for this project. This blueprint highlights each scenario and the visual design components that would require programming later. 

Considering the nonprofit was struggling to relate to consumers, this experience was designed to resonate with everyday users. By leveraging Mayer’s Multimedia Personalization Principle, I intentionally chose the text to remain conversational throughout the story to keep users immersed and engaged. 

I chose to include a mentor character for users to gather more information from if they chose to engage with and didn’t require them to use the expert if they didn’t wish.  This allowed for additional user choice and a more enjoyable and real experience. I also chose to include a health meter as a visual indication of how healthy the home is after cleaning and reminder to make healthier choices.

Visual Mockups

After review, revisions, and approval of the text-based storyboard, I started by creating a mood board to gather inspiration and narrowed down choices that best suited this experience.  For consistency, I developed a style guide with a carefully selected custom color theme, designed in Coolors, that aligned well with the topic and fonts and weights for various text styles. 

From there, I was able to move into designing visual mockups of various slide types. I sourced graphics and used Figma to manipulate and combine assets. From there I created wireframes, gathered feedback, and made iterations to result in final mockups to be used in development.

Interactive Prototype & Development

I brought the story to life in Articulate Storyline 360 where I programmed interactive elements based on the visual mockups and text-based storyboard.  Iterations were made based on valuable feedback from the prototype. 

Based on feedback regarding visual contrast, I changed the health meter icons to be more visually appealing with red and green color icons and easier to understand the progress on the meter. I was also challenged with simulating that a change in time had occurred between scenarios. To combat this, I chose to include intermediary transition slides before each new scenario and at the end before the results screen. I chose to make this custom rather than using built in transition slides to allow for more control of design. Based on feedback, I added additional expert character layers to each consequence slide so that users could choose to return to that knowledge base and deepen their understanding of why choosing to use a certain product affected them in that way.

During my own testing, I decided to edit the resources tab in the player to say “Credits” and used this space to attribute source graphics. By turning this on in the player settings, it is now easily accessible throughout the project. This decision was made so that the attribution on each individual image was not visually distracting and did not take away from the user's immersion with the story throughout the experience.  I also chose to incorporate parts from ARC’s Model of attention and relevance, by adding small moments of delight of a clean sparkle when correct choices were made and relevant but relatable real world examples of messes that occur in real life. 

Results & Takeaways

Although I am passionate about data-driven results because this is a conceptual project, I don’t have data to provide feedback on whether sales increased over 2 years. However, I do have positive reviews from members of the audience, that the story driven approach in this experience was relatable and enjoyable to learn without actually having to do the cleaning in real life at that moment. Users reported learning new effects that chemicals in common products can have and admitted to feeling some of those effects after using those products in their real life.  They also expressed their excitement to explore more natural products and have a safer home for their loved ones. 

This project helped me gain a stronger sense of the instructional design process from beginning to end. I enjoyed working backwards with Kirkpatrick's approach and focusing on evaluation throughout the process. I also found deep value in action mapping as I was confident my scenarios were rooted in the core problem and meeting the nonprofits objectives. 

Overall, I learned how to design, develop, and refine a learning experience that was scenario-based and addressed real-life problems and look forward to applying my knowledge to future projects, while also continuing to learn new skills.