Desperately Seeking Software Simulations
The third class of authoring tool is relatively new on the scene. Although these tools look a lot like the ScreenCam-style tools at first glance, they are far more sophisticated under the hood. Instead of just taking pictures of the video monitor, they actually have the ability to understand the actual interactions between the user and the software. So, for example, they understand that the user has "clicked" on a "menu" and are able to grab the names of the menu and the item that was clicked on, enabling the authoring software to automatically generate sentences like "Click on 'cut' in the 'edit' menu." This is a huge time saver. Furthermore, these tools are able to automatically generate "let me try it" and "test me" simulations, and even documentation, in addition to the ScreenCam-like animations. You can typically generate rough drafts of all of these assets in minutes and final versions within hours rather than the days or weeks it can take with more traditional authoring packages. The main price that you pay for this efficiency is, well, money. These packages are much more expensive than the other types of tools, ranging from $5,000 to $15,000 per seat, with the upper half of the price range being more typical. Secondarily, they are usually somewhat less flexible than the Hypercard-style tools in terms of generating highly customized lessons, although I frankly find them to be powerful and flexible enough that I have only occasionally missed the extra authoring power. They work very well for producing both traditional training and performance support. The packages that are currently on the market tend to produce somewhat cluttered and bandwidth-heavy output for use as awareness training, but since this limitation isn't really inherent in the authoring model so much as it is just a consequence of where the vendors have put most of their energy, it may be something that the vendors can fix in future versions. The most mature packages in this class of authoring tool are Epiance's epiplex and Knowledge Products' OnDemand, though new entrants to this field seem to be coming on fast.
Naturally, these are just broad generalizations. Each of the vendors learns from their competitors (across all three tool categories) and tries to shore up competitive weaknesses as quickly as possible. You'd be wise to take these descriptions as a starting point rather than gospel truth.
Evaluating Your Options
There are many factors involved in choosing the right simulation tools for your needs—so many, in fact, that it is usually very important to have somebody on your team who has lots of simulation development experience to help with the evaluation. However, here are some general guidelines to help you get started:
- Think about how important authoring speed is to you. If you need to produce large volumes of training or performance support on enterprise systems that still being updated with relatively few people, then money spent on the higher-priced authoring tools will show a very strong return on investment very quickly. On the other hand, authors who only have to deal with a small handful of course modules and have at six or eight weeks to do significant design and development will probably do just fine with the Hypercard-style tools.
- Evaluate each tool's underlying instructional design philosophy. More often than not, course-building tools save time by making assumptions about instructional design goals and desired outputs. Since it's never productive to fight against your own tools, be sure to pick ones that have default outputs that are as close as possible to what you would want your finished product to look like. Ask each vendor what his or her company believes are the most important features in quality simulation training. If the salesperson doesn't have a good answer, then walk away.
- Don't get hung up on pre-conceived fine details of how the training should look or work. We all have design habits or preferences. However, many of these are just exactly that—habits or preferences. Before you assume that a simulation package's navigation menu or feedback presentation method is inferior just because is different from what you've done before, test it out with users who don't have the strongly-developed opinions and habits that you have. If they don't care, then you probably shouldn't either.
- Evaluate each tool's underlying workflow philosophy. In addition to making assumptions about how simulation training should work, toolmakers also make assumptions about how simulation training authors should do their work. Again, ask the vendors how their customers usually organize their design and production teams. Try to find tools that best match your team's configuration, size, and levels of expertise.
- Think about the trade-off between plug-in requirements and bandwidth requirements. Simulations tend to come in three different flavors in terms of run-time requirements: those that will run in any modern browser using dynamic HTML, those that require standard browser add-ins such as Java or Flash, and those that require proprietary plug-ins. In general, the dynamic HTML simulations require much more bandwidth—possibly ten or fifteen times more—than the plug-in-based simulations. In theory, the Java or Flash solutions should be a good compromise. In practice, however, the implementations I have seen to date tend to be weak on interactivity. Again, the field of products is changing rapidly, so don't take this rule-of-thumb for granted. The point is that you should talk to your IT staff and ask them whether keeping bandwidth down or avoiding plug-ins is more important in your environment.
- Above all, focus on your use cases. A feature in an authoring package is only useful if it offers a benefit that you actually need for your particular situation. Try to develop a fairly clear vision of how your users will and will not interact with the training in their work environments before you evaluate the tools. Tell yourself short stories about your users, as I have done in the first half of this article. Then try to keep an open mind about what specific implementations might meet those interaction requirements. Be prepared to tell your vendor the "what" and to let the vendor tell you the "how."
Michael Feldstein is CEO and co-founder of MindWires, a business process knowledge management consulting company with strong e-learning roots.
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