Link’spiration™ – Friday June 28th

Link’spiration™ – A chance to be surprised and inspired by unexpected connections

To border or not to border
As we continue to follow the chatter around iOS 7, we’re revisiting a favorite and persistent conversation: what web and mobile conventions have settled into best practice and what conventions are stand-ins until a more intuitive alternative comes along?

This triggered musings about what design is—as Steve Jobs said (and as Bill Moggridge supports), design is so much more than “what it looks like…. design is how it works.” While we don’t mind borderless buttons as a matter of course, we also don’t want to risk distracting our learners with confusion about how things work.

And if you’ve ever admired “Apple” design, you’ve admired Dieter Rams. One of the most influential industrial designers of the last century, Rams created design principles that strongly informed Apple’s approach. Interestingly, they’re also highly applicable to good instructional designs.
Bill Moggridge on Brand Thinking
Apple’s Borderless Buttons
Good Instructional Design

To thine own eyes be true
Don’t look at this image too long or your mind will start to bend. We’re fans of adjacencies, so we’re asking ourselves how the use of perspective here can influence our sense of perspective in our scenario design. Because we believe strongly that visuals are highly influential to learning, we’ve created our own unique approaches, like these custom animations for eBay.

And speaking of adjacencies, one of the most obvious for instructional designers is UX (user experience) design. Here’s an insightful take on “visceral” design–that is, design that “satisfies our desire to engage, manipulate, and shape our experience.” When we develop mobile learning apps at Allen, we like to think along similar lines.
Optical Illusion
eBay Custom Animations
“Visceral” Design

A surprise ending
Sometimes learning from adjacencies takes you in surprising directions. Check out this simple approach to creating a collaborative workspace. We thought of the desk as a possible metaphor for a personalized virtual learning and collaboration space. (If this concept interests you, check out our blog post on learning portals to see how we’re making learning experiences like this a reality.)
Deciding Between an LMS & Learning Portal?

Leading the following
Last week’s Link’spiration™ post reminded us that leadership lessons can also come from surprising sources. While the video is, on the surface, about a guy dancing, it leads to a key insight about real behavior change. We agree with the writer that the “first follower” needed just as much courage as the “leader.” How might this video inform leadership training for you?
Leadership Lessons

What inspires you? Join our conversation below.