Moho animation in Instructional Design

[Jkoseattle]

I am an Instructional Designer in my day job, which involves several applications Moho adjacent, but designed specifically for creating online training. Camtasia is used heavily as well, so there's some definite overlap.

Right now I'm looking for my next ID job, and so I'm wondering if Moho or 2D animation in general is something people have run across in the Instructional Design (ID) space. I mean, there's 2D animation, and then there's instructional design, which uses a lot of stock photography and increasingly, DIY animation apps like Vyond. But while there are top drawer 2D animators out there, they don't necessarily know adult learning theory, and there are ID's out there who rely on cheesy Vyond-type animation and can't do something like Moho. But I don't know, really. So I'm wondering if knowing both these things is something I would be well-advised to amplify, or if it's not something that's a value add for most people looking for instructional design.

In my ID projects, I've occasionally made use of Moho to demonstrate some concept visually in an engaging way that can't easily be done with standard ID tools or PowerPoint animation. But that was me just getting the work done, not trying to sell myself. And man, getting to use Moho all the time as part of my day job sounds pretty awesome.

Does anyone know anything about this?

[alanthebox]

I work in eLearning, too. I originally got into it because I liked the idea of getting to animate all day long (originally in Flash). With the introduction of software like Storyline, my organization has also moved away from animating content and instead relies on stock photos/icons/simple illustrations. All of our market research has indicated that our users don't particularly care about production quality, so, now we just pump courses out as quickly as possible. I think in the past few years, I've only gotten to use Moho once for a special project. So, in my experience, competency in 2D animation is never considered in the hiring process. We consider experience in 3D to be a more valuable skill (a lot of our content is healthcare related, so, realistic renders are preferred over 2D).

Anyhow, just my perspective! It's certainly a varied field.

[slowtiger]

All of our market research has indicated that our users don't particularly care about production quality

Now that's a very disappointing thing to learn ...

[hayasidist]

My work involves presenting to CEOs / CFOs and the like. I got into Moho (Anime Studio as it was back then) because I was so f....ing sick of the "death by powerpoint" approach that seemed to prevail industry-wide. My animations were simple drop-ins to PPTs, rather than stand-alone movies. Motion Artist looked like it was on the right trajectory, but it lacked ease of use in presentation mode -- and, sadly, MA went the way of the dodo. MA refreshed with a good UI design for interactive presentations could, IMO, be the way forward. As it stands, I'm still using PPT with Moho inserts ...

But compelling graphics is only part of the story -- the critical element is in content and its delivery... and so I can understand the comment about "production quality" if that refers to JUST the graphics.

[jahnocli]

I've worked as an instructional designer, and I've dabbled with Moho for a long time, and in my experience, Moho and instructional design are two separate worlds. I've written instructional courses in Flash where I was able to integrate some animation, which was easy to do, but Moho would have been problematic. (For me, .swf export from Moho is unacceptably poor). I agree with the point about Motion Artist: I bought that software, and thought it had real potential as a kind of interactive sub-Moho, but sadly not realised... Unfortunately, most clients who commission eLearning courses wouldn't recognise quality animation if it bit them in the arse -- again, my opinion. So, for me, parallel universes...

[slowtiger]

I did a few jobs in the field, and my main complain is that no one really thinks of which content needs which media to be delivered. Too often there's too much text which "just needs some illustration", or there's something which needs a deeper explanation, but is done away with some non-related image. It's as if nobody really cares if the audience understands a single bit.

But the real pest is the "whiteboard animation": instead of motion, there's images slowly revealed through faked drawing, and a bunch of still images just zipped in and out. Doesn't explain anything, doesn't provide anything meaningful.

[alanthebox]

All of our market research has indicated that our users don't particularly care about production quality

Now that's a very disappointing thing to learn ...

We do sometimes get feedback from learners who appreciate the quality of our courses, but the vast majority just want to complete their continuing education requirements as quickly and cheaply as possible. Our scripts are still well written and incorporate adult learning theory, but no longer include custom animations for complex topics or even human voice over artists. Our decision makers would rather spend under $1 to generate text-to-speech narration with Amazon Polly then pay an actual human voice over artist $1,000 for the same amount of audio. And our user feedback leads us to believe that no one really cares. I used to spend 2 to 3 months crafting well thought out, unique courses. Now the turnaround time is 2 to 3 weeks.

Kind of a sad state of affairs. One that has me wondering if it's time for a career change!

[Jkoseattle]

Interesting, and disappointing, responses. In my courses, I haven't made a big deal out of the Moho, I was more using it to illustrate something more clearly. I wasn't rendering super graphics or anything, stuff like "What we need here is to show that when they type in that code, it goes to the data center which turns it into that other code, and then sends it to the end user". It was just easier to Mohoate that process. But good to know, bummer.

[hayasidist]

I did a few jobs in the field, and my main complain is that no one really thinks of which content needs which media to be delivered. Too often there's too much text which "just needs some illustration", or there's something which needs a deeper explanation, but is done away with some non-related image. It's as if nobody really cares if the audience understands a single bit.

totally yes to that! The most boring presenter sticks up an ultra-busy slide full of text ... and then proceeds to read it.... often so fast it's barely intelligible... or so slowly that the audience tunes out long before the recital ends ... word for word ... mumbling to the screen ... without looking at the audience ... correcting irrelevant mis-reads... (Text: "The rain in Spain falls mainly on the Plain"; Delivery: "In Spain, er - no - the - um - er - rain ah - yes - The rain in ...")

slides are **Visual Aids** not the presenter's script; they shouldn't be a humongous list of vital facts that the audience needs to scribble down before the slide disappears; they're not irrelevant holiday snaps, ... They're there to reinforce the key point.

If you *need* to deliver important facts that the audience will have to use (e.g. fire assembly points / contact phone numbers / cash flow forecasts for the next 10 years / the chemical formula for ... ), give them handouts (on any sensible media) - either before or after the delivery, and refer to them so the audience can either look at them or know they don't need to take copious notes.


But there is a key point where (self-paced) instructional learning and interactive informative / persuasive presentation diverge. Often, in the former, the audience starts with little knowledge and needs to build it; but where the presenter's aim is to convince the "otherwise informed" audience {of / to do} something new, the delivery style needs to be quite different. And another route to an epic fail is to use "teaching mode" when "persuasive mode" is actually needed (or vv) -- might be similar visual content, but with a totally different script.

But the real pest is the "whiteboard animation": instead of motion, there's images slowly revealed through faked drawing, and a bunch of still images just zipped in and out. Doesn't explain anything, doesn't provide anything meaningful.

+1 to that ... it has its place, but rarely in the fields we're discussing here!

[Jkoseattle]

But the real pest is the "whiteboard animation": instead of motion, there's images slowly revealed through faked drawing, and a bunch of still images just zipped in and out. Doesn't explain anything, doesn't provide anything meaningful.

I've seen that technique used really effectively though. But like anything in eLearning, it needs to be thought through and synced up effectively with the VO. When it is, and when the images are appropriate and make the audio stickier, then it's a beautiful thing.

Usually it isn't though.