M&T Bank Mobile Learning Templates

October to December 2017. Instructional Designer.

This dedicated case study restores the narrative from my original portfolio. The work samples below come from that project.

Overview

In Fall of 2017, a representative from M&T Bank approached our professor to find instructional design students to help add mobile support to their training material. I, along with three of my colleagues, worked together to research viable options, create a mockup using said option and present the findings to the representative.

Audience

: M&T Bank staff needing training

Responsibilities

: Instructional Design, Product Research, Template Creation

Tools Used

:  Articulate Storyline and Rise

Analysis

At that time, M&T’s LMS did not support mobile learning. But a new was LMS coming and new leadership, so there was a need for mobile course development. Our team researched the best practices and different authoring tools to build a template for mobile learning modules. The template outlined appropriate specifications, standards, and parameters for screen size, text, images, etc. that can be used by instructional designers at M&T Bank to quickly create short learning modules that function on all mobile platforms and devices.

Our final recommendation was Articulate Rise based on its responsiveness and ease of use. The client chose Storyline 3 because their company would be upgrading to that soon, so we created our templates using Storyline 3.

Click the picture to see the research

Design Process

Everyone on the team created a mockup of what the training could look like. I designed mine as simplistic as can be to reduce data load. It included a specific idea on each slide. There were multiple choice questions to check understanding. The format was for a mobile phone. We decided to go with the template that had the greatest usability with the smallest amount of data load.

Development

Once we completed the design aesthetic, we all worked together to take the example training lesson and develop an Articulate project around it.

Implementation

We exported the Storyline project as a SCORM package so that the team could easily implement it into the Workday LMS.  We also made a compatible Rise project in case they changed their minds. Unfortunately, none of us thought to speak with the representative of the project after we finished, so we were not able to evaluate the effectiveness of the template.

Results & Takeaways

Results:

● Built a template in a newer version for future use. M&T instructional designers primarily use Storyline 2. Included a slide/section in the template that is capable of playing a video that is hosted in a video portal.

● Researched microlearning approaches. Considered alternatives to Storyline (e.g. Captivate), if there are better options for mobile course development.

● Research included methods of deployment and best practices for financial institutions.

● Looked into responsiveness of solution.

● Built a course that dynamically plays on laptops, tablets, and phones.

● Determined if template should be tailored to formal learning modules or just-in-time

performance support.

● Added placeholders/templates for games, quizzes, and other creative learning approaches.

● Developed a high-fidelity mockup of a course example that uses the template with M&T

Bank content.

Our takeaways were that the client may not always completely take the recommendation due to business limitations. We recommended Rise, but they went with Storyline 3. Also, we learned that clients may not be able to meet as much as you’d like due to time differences. In this case, effective email communication is necessary. And as for Mobile Design we learned  that font size is very important in legibility on smaller screens and high contrast for better legibility on smaller screens. This might be obvious, but this project reemphasized that simpler is better.

Evidence Boundary

We delivered the templates and a high-fidelity course example. We did not receive post-delivery effectiveness data. The experience taught me to adapt to client platform decisions and arrange evaluation access earlier.