East Bay Chapter Monthly Meeting

Thursday, April 1, 2004

Program Description

Our long-term client for online learning wanted to take their next-generation system beyond onboard help to a performance-support environment. We also wanted to provide a unified system for developing content once and re-using in a variety of ways.

Over the course of 1.5 years, we wrestled with the theoretical goals and pragmatic constraints. There are lessons both in our successes: an integrated content system capable of providing print documentation and layered context-sensitive help; as well as our failures: a step down from full performance support, and training not completely integrated with help and documentation.

There's another message, too, about the strategic contributions of customer-facing information development to organizational goals. In this session we provide the goals, outcomes, and lessons learned, as well as a reflection on the implications for the relationship of support organizations to the business value chain.

About our Presenter

Clark N. Quinn, Ph.D., Director of User Experience at Knowledge Anywhere, joined the company as a key learning consultant in 2002. Clark has been leading educational system design for over 20 years, working with business, education, government, and the not-for-profit sectors to develop innovative applications that meet real needs.

Clark is a recognized scholar in the field with an extensive publication and presentation record, and has held positions at the University of New South Wales, the University of Pittsburgh's Learning Research and Development Center, and San Diego State University's Center for research in Mathematics and Science Education. Clark earned a Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology from the University of California, San Diego, after working for DesignWare, a visionary educational software company. He has been responsible for the design of award-winning online content, educational computer games, and websites.