[Sigia-l] Forcing practice

[Andrew Otwell]

>Part of the solution: when a user visits for the first time, a popup
>forces them through a learning process. The goal of this is to minimize
>the errors once they get to the app. 
>
>My question: what form should that learning process take, and how can we
>ensure they actually learnt something and didn't just click through the
>popup?
>  
>
I'm sure the instructional designers at the company I work for would 
cringe at this idea! Any sentence with "forcing users" in it seems like 
not the ideal solution. It sounds like you have hardly any flexibility 
though. You might at least offer a couple of "paths" through this 
learning funnel. Maybe a step-by-step tutorial OR a quick reference to 
the key data-entry problem points. What about a non-computer solution: a 
printed sheet or brochure?

Incidently I spent several hours this weekend playing some video games 
and was really amazed at how skillful game designers are at introducing 
complex topics, reinforcing them, testing users on variations, putting 
the training to use, and offering additional training in the context of 
play.

andrew