A lot of the interactions I make at work are based on not allowing users to continue until all of the interactions on a slide have been completed.
An exmaple could be there are four buttons, which need to be clicked so they show all of the popups, and then the next button will appear.
I’ve heard from videos online that there are mixed views on this approach and am interested to hear what are your thoughts. I know from a usability point of view, it breaks one of the heuristics, which is to give freedom to users with navigation, but it comes up so often with what I do day-to-day.
Really interested to hear your thoughts.
Luke
Thanks everyone for your replies to this. Wasn’t expecting so many. It’s really interesting to hear your thoughts on this area of design.
Must have missed this conversation years ago. I don’t like the way learners are treated by requests like this. I have been writing a lot of blogs about giving at least the opportunity to have the Next button on a second or later visit of the slides if that requirement persists to push the learner at watching (or sleeping through) the whole slide. If the course is not engaging enough that is due to the developer, not to the learner.
If we are talking about workplace training and the interaction that prevents a user from moving forward simulates a procedure on the job that also limits a user from moving forward, then there is no problem.The barrier contributes to the learning. However, nothing interferes more with adult learning than preventing adults from being autonomous and self-directed. To do otherwise is to treat them as children – a sure way to have adult learners tune out. Forcing adults to stay on a particular slide until some task is completed is no guarantee they have learned anything. If that same barrier does not exist on the job, all you’ve done is frustrate or even anger them.
Now that said, as a freelance ID I have to admit that with sufficient warnings given, I will abide by the request of my stakeholder to implement such a restriction. After all, the customer is always right. My job is complete when I warn them that it goes against the principles of adult learning.
I agree!
Corporate training can be tedious. You click next as fast as you can then take a quiz to see if you learned something that you have been trained on over and over.
Options:
- Test out to bypass training.
- Review slides on failed test items only.
- New material that requires thought to answer questions or simulations with multiple outcomes, with multiple right answers.
I like to use this type of setup in my projects as well. It gives the user an illusion of self-navigation, but still requires them to view all content. to do this, I use conditional actions and variables. For example, a user might have to click on three buttons before the “next” button shows. To do this, I hide the “next” button on entry of the slide, and I create actions and variables for each button.
Button 1 would have a conditional action such as:
IF: Button2_Variable = 1, Button3_Variable = 1
THEN: Show Next_Button, Assign Button1_Variable with 1
ELSE: Assign Button1_Variable with 1
Button 2:
IF: Button1_Variable = 1, Button3_Variable = 1
THEN: Show Next_Button, Assign Button2_Variable with 1
ELSE: Assign Button2_Variable with 1
And you would continue this format for each button. Any other acting that you would have occurring on the click of a button (such as showing an image) should be listed under both THEN and ELSE.
This is just our way of putting together a slide like this. I’d like to hear is others have another way of doing this!
When possible, let the user drive.
I’m all for user control, so I try to avoid that kind of limitation. If I need users to review certain information I don’t hide it in the first place :), and maybe give is as feedback to a question (a much more meaningful interaction). Also, if I need to know whether they saw it (for compliance purposes, say), I assign score to the buttons and give a final result in terms of “you forgot to review some critical info”. Most of the time, just placing the buttons in reading order (being the Next one the last one) works fine though.
It all depends on what you’re trying to accomplish. There is a certain monotony to the “next…next…next” that makes sense to break, especially if there’s a requirement that the user do something on that screen. If you’re really concerned that the learner should be able to bypass the screen, you could always add another button (not in the same location as the next button) that will let them do so.
Unfortunately, we have programmed our learners not to think. They peck at the next button like a bird getting seed for a reward. I’m not sure this is a behavior we want to continually reinforce. I’m all for conventions, but you also need to break the “rules” from time to time to keep the learner engaged.
My two cents… You may find it worth more or less than that.
Ed
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