Building the AIR Assessment Workbench editor
As part of the development team at Saffron we see lots of new technologies and frameworks emerging on a weekly basis and it can sometimes be hard to pick out which of these new offerings will be the...
View ArticleFlash on the desktop
If Adobe AIR is something new to you and you’re not familiar with what it has to offer, here are my top five reasons why AIR is great! It’s fast – Performance increases were a major objective for the...
View ArticleFirst impressions of Microsoft Expression Blend 3
At Saffron, we are always excited by new technologies which can be used as tools to enhance learning and usability. One of the many interesting projects I am currently involved in is the development of...
View ArticleGetting the spring of ideas flowing
We are all eager for fresh and creative ideas to make our courses innovative, effective and engaging for the end user. But we can’t simply rely on random activities, chance or some creative ‘greater...
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Top five tips for writing XML for beginners
XML can be a great tool when used correctly, but it does sometimes suffer from being a development buzzword. The trick to understanding how best to use XML is to remember that its focus is to provide...
View ArticleShow your mouse the finger
In 1999 director Steven Spielberg assembled a team of 15 of the world’s leading futurologists and scientists and tasked them with creating a plausible vision of what life would be like in the year...
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Top five tips for designing engaging graphics for e-learning
Creating original graphics for an e-learning course can be a challenging task, particularly when anything that’s created has to comply with strict branding guidelines. An engaging graphic environment...
View ArticleAre you brightdancing? How about bright learning?
It may sound harsh to say that the best thing about X Factor is the ad breaks, but that’s the conclusion I’ve started to reach recently. To be fair, it hasn’t just been Jedward’s tuneless pogoing or...
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Top five tips for creating a look and feel for a new client
Design work for a new client can be exciting and difficult at the same time. The novelty of working with a new brand and identity comes hand in hand with the challenge of unfamiliar ground. We’ve found...
View ArticleAdvancing the e-learning experience by using 3D game design techniques
Imagine a fully immersive virtual environment created for a safety training product, for example. If this environment is presented to the learner using techniques similar to those used to create a...
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Top five tips for designing training for BlackBerrys
With their apparent ubiquity amongst office staff, their ease of use, and their mobile connectivity, BlackBerry phones make an attractive platform for e-learning. Here’s our list of things to consider...
View ArticleAliens and inspiration
Inspiration can come from the strangest places. Personally, I think that Jeff Wayne’s musical masterpiece War of the Worlds is a perfect model for effective e-learning. Bear with me on this one… Most...
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What is quality when it comes to e-Learning?
Does a good-looking course qualify as good quality? What about an ordinary course that brings about great behavioural change? I’m sure the argument can be extended to both sides. But my argument is to...
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Bringing Gamification to the workplace
In the last few weeks at Saffron Interactive there has been a lot of talk about gamification. For those that attended the recent Learning Technologies Exhibition you may have have seen one of our...
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Why Harry Redknapp is the best instructional designer this industry never had
As the approver-in-chief of our blog is an Arsenal fan, I’m unsure that this entry will ever make it on to our website, but here it goes anyway. This Sunday (26th February), Spurs will make the short...
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Seven top tips for designing and developing accessible e-learning
e-Learning designers face many of the same challenges as designers of classroom training – they’re aspiring to a learning experience which is relevant, motivates, incentivises and inspires learners to...
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Is e-learning being flipped out?
Over the last few years there can be no argument that e-learning has come on an awful long way. What started off in many cases as animated PowerPoints has evolved to courses that include animations,...
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Six incredible HTML5 interactions for elearning!
“The utmost thing is the user experience, to have the most useful experience.” Marissa Mayer Slick interactions create a more dynamic elearning course that responds to the user and allows the user to...
View ArticleDo you sincerely want to be agile?
Well, who wouldn’t want to be? Agile, I mean. Given that there are so many antonyms of ‘agile’, including dull, ignorant, inactive, lazy, lethargic, lifeless, rigid, slow, and for good measure,...
View ArticleTest, check and track!
In this day and age people have so many choices about even the most basic of things — what to do, what to eat, what to read. So with all this choice only a click away, why would anyone waste their time...
View ArticleBottoms up! Let’s change the rules…
It’s that time of year again, you know, when at the top of your inbox is an all staff communication reminding you to put time aside to prepare for a career development conversation with your manager....
View ArticleHow to add the WoW factor to your CV and your learning
So for those of you who’ve been living on one of Saturn’s moons for the last 12 years, World of Warcraft (or WoW for the indoctrinated) is what’s known as an MMORPG or Massively Multi-player Online...
View ArticleIs the high cost of creating elearning simulations worth it?
So what is simulation? Simulation in elearning is a fully immersive experience in which real-life situations are replicated to interact with the learner. A good use of simulations thrusts the learner...
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Insider top tips on protecting your training material!
I wanted to mark the start of season 2 of the hit TV show Mr. Robot with this blog post. The show is a gripping drama following a young programmer named Elliot who works as a cyber-security engineer by...
View ArticleA dummie’s guide to engaging millennials
I’ve read the word ‘Millennial’ so many times in articles, branding and advertising over the last few months, that I can just about muster up the strength to type the word myself. Like it or loathe it,...
View ArticleLean process — How lean learning benefits L&D
All organisations are governed by processes and procedures that appear crucial at first glance. Some are officially part of company procedure, and others simply become intrinsic over time from being...
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VR learning — potential as far as the eye can see
Alright, so it’s been well over a year now since we all started to hear whispers of a revolution within the digital dimension. I think it’s safe to say that we’re not quite at the point where we can...
View ArticleThese applications of AI in learning will transform the future of performance...
Things move fast in the artificial intelligence sphere. With Elon Musk and other AI influencers calling for a ban on automated deathbots, and an AI bot created by his own start up, OpenAI, now able to...
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Why you need to know the science behind accessible colour design
Whether designing websites or learning experiences, one of the issues a developer needs to consider is accessibility. This means being able to design content that can be consumed by as large a target...
View ArticleHow to enable an agile approach in your organisation
Agile, adj. – able to move quickly and easily. Is that how you would describe a standard approach to project management? Probably not. However, the agile method is an increasingly popular mode of...
View Article10 ways to use heuristic evaluation for the perfect learner journey
It’s accepted wisdom now, at least in enlightened circles, that a learning or content management system needs to have the learner’s user journey and experiential needs at the forefront of their minds....
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