Every day of my life is filled with learning and observation. After all, I am human.

Learning in the Real World

As I prepared to leave the house and embark on a journey of discovery, I made a quick stop in the restroom. As I washed my hands on the way out of the restroom, I thought about the habit that had been instilled in me. When did I learn to wash my hands after using the restroom? When did it become a habit? I left the house and approached the curb with intent to cross to the other side. Immediately, I looked both ways for oncoming traffic. I paused and thought back to when and where that was ingrained in my brain, but I could not recall the lessons. These examples were not the examples I was looking for. They were merely actions acquired through previous repetition of a mental experience. (Andrews, 1903)

I started down the street on my way to el cajero; that’s Spanish for the ATM. Living in Ecuador, you need cash in hand. Many small shops do not accept credit, and of course, most of them don’t have any signage out stating whether they do or not. You just have to ask before you start shopping. I needed cash so that I could grab a pernil sandwich from a street vendor after my appointment at el hospital; that’s Spanish for the hospital. My mother and identical twin brother have both recently been diagnosed with high cholesterol. Although I eat a bit healthier than my twin, he works out several times a week. Since that’s several times more a week than I work out, I decided to play it safe and go in and get checked.

El Cajero

As I approached el cajero, I was prompted to insert my card into the ATM. An animated image of a card being inserted into the card slot before me gave me a very clear demonstration of how the card should be inserted and what side the magnetic strip should be on. The animation was only a couple of seconds long, but it looped indefinitely so that I could be absolutely sure I did not miss anything. This was such a great design choice.

The animation continued looping until I inserted my card. The ATM latched onto my card as it changed the message on the screen letting me know that I would not be able to remove my card until my transaction was complete. I first experienced this in Ecuador and remember wondering what the ATM was doing to my card. I only now realized how the message was perfectly timed to set the user at ease and prompt the user to continue on to the next step.

As I left the ATM and walked to the hospital, I realized how simple yet functional the instructional design of the prompts was. The ATM seemed to wake up as I approached it, and gave me a simple yet functional animation showing me where and how to insert my card into the machine. The message targeted three local demographics with simple instructions in their the appropriate language. This system was very easy to get acquainted with. I was not confused about what to do next and had my cash and card in hand in about a minute. I have experienced this same process countless times, but this time I noticed it.

El Hospital

After I checked into the hospital, I went to get my vitals taken before I would see the doctor. I sat down at the nurse’s station and looked around. I’ve become accustomed to all the posters on the wall being in Spanish, and I speak Spanish far better than I did when I moved here in May 2014. One of the things I find the most interesting is looking at posters with medical terminology and knowing what is being explained. Not just because a lot of medical terms are similar in Spanish and English, but because of the use of graphics that help convey the message.

Additionally, I noticed that the hospital was laid out pretty much the same as I was used to in the United States. There was a red bin on the counter with a slit for sharps. There was a red trashcan on the floor with a biohazard symbol on it, and it was located next to the gray trashcan. Both trash cans had colored tape, in their respective color, outlining their designated spot on the floor. Other areas had additional trashcans: blue for recyclables, green for compostables, and white for paper. There was hand sanitizer mounted to the wall on just about every corner. Next to it were instructional images depicting that you shouldn’t cough into your hands, instead cough into your shoulder. Everything, although very foreign to me, was very familiar.

As I waited for my turn with the doctor, I thought about the use of colors to indicate the type of trash that went into each canister. These were the same colors that I was already familiar with. I also thought about the several posters around the hospital with health tips. I realized that I didn’t, initially, read any of them. Only reading them to get the details, I was able to glean the concepts with a quick glance at the images. As I sat there pondering, I felt a tickle in my throat. I turned my head slightly and coughed into my shoulder.

Summary

As I sought to find examples of instructional design in the real world, I was a little overwhelmed. I quickly realized that I just had to open my eyes. There are examples all around us from people trying to instruct us to do something, and they often go unnoticed. Most of the examples that I stumble across are quickly dismissed as spam: marketing attempts, graffiti, and that prince that approached me to tell me that I was the rightful heir to the throne and untold wealth. After I sifted through the bombardment of information, I quickly realized how deliberate the use of color, animation, and terse instructions is. Applying these lessons will only take doing. I regularly train our part-timers and have recently been asked to coordinate the cross training of the team of which I am a member of. Learning how to quickly and effectively develop a training strategy will be paramount in accomplishing this task.

Additional Thoughts

I believe that I have always had a keen attention to detail. However, it likely truly manifested itself while I was in the Army training for close quarters combat, and having to identify the threat from friendly within fractions of a second. Luckily, I never had to use that training on the field of combat, but I get to recall on the lessons learned from it. The number one thing I will remember from my time in the military is that practice does not make perfect. Practice makes permanent. Perfect practice make perfect.

As I pondered the landscape, wondering where I should go to find perfect examples of instructional design, I remembered another lesson that was bestowed upon me. This time, it was a colleague in IT. He regularly asserted that it’s better to have something that works well than to be still pondering how to make it perfect. So often, we spend too much time nick-picking a project to perfection, that we haven’t even accomplished any of the real goals of the project.

Writing my thoughts out in the form of a journal is not something I’ve ever enjoyed doing. So, while I was trying very hard to think of how to make a perfect article, I should have just started writing. Today, I did exactly that. I didn’t know the direction I would go when I started, but I just started putting words on ~paper~ screen. Luckily, I remembered the words of a wise Jedi, “Do. Or do not. There is no try.” Otherwise, I’d probably still just be thinking about what to type.

References

Andrews, B. R. (1903). Habit. The American Journal of Psychology, 14(2), 121–149.
(2016, July 19). Atm-withdraw-cash-map-ec-card-1524870 [Digital image]. Retrieved June 6, 2018, from https://pixabay.com/en/atm-withdraw-cash-map-ec-card-1524870/