The ABCBs of NCC CPD
The Background
The Australian Building Codes Board
The Australian Building Codes Board, ABCB, is the federal government agency responsible for regulating and enforcing building codes and standards in Australia. One of its key responsibilities is to support industry and increase awareness and competent use of its technical provisions.
Pointsbuild
Pointsbuild is Australia’s largest provider of e-learning content for the Built Environment and operates a proprietary learning management system (LMS) that administers training and education to industry practitioners and leading association and membership bodies.
Pointsbuild was chosen as the ABCB’s partner to develop a series of 27 online courses across 9 industry sectors based on the highly technical Volumes of the National Construction Code (NCC).
I was contracted as creative and strategic design consultant to develop the production playbook for the project.
The brief called for the seamless integration of video, podcast development, and a sophisticated visual design all requiring strict adherence to the original text of the NCC.
Under the hood, however, the LMS, originally developed in 2007, was facing challenges with low user engagement and poor user experience due the limiting nature of the user interface and confining parameters of both budget and platform.
The Challenges
Well-establish LMS platform on which starting a course module meant a launched light-box window that cut the usable frame by a significant amount.
An inability to rework the platform structure as its original, ‘one-size-fits-all’ LMS development meant any fundamental changes for the ABCB client would mean changes across all pre-existing clients.
To date, course design had consisted of an exported series of PowerPoint slides, advanced by clicking a ‘next’ button, sometimes accompanied by a recorded voice-over.
To achieve the ABCB’s expectations of success, this would become, first and foremost, an exercise in CX design solutions.
The Goals
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Create a user journey that lowers confusion around path-to-purchase while making relevant course content discoverable, affordable and ultimately learnable.
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Ensure the highly technical nature of the source material does not inhibit the user’s engagement with the content.
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End-to-end, the user experience must enhance their understanding of the content and help to ensure their completion of the course material.
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All course content must adhere to the strict federal guidelines for accessibility.
“… like renovating a church into a nightclub …”
The Approach
To address these challenges, we employed a user-centric design (UCD) approach that kept the underlying structure of the LMS platform (the ‘church’) but opened the ‘inside’ to a more engaging experience for the user (the ‘nightclub’).
We looked for a two-part solution that allowed for integration with the platform while ensuring the ability to leverage the content and media as part of the project requirements.
Working with internal stakeholders from the ABCB and our learning design team, research was conducted to understand the needs and pain points of learners navigating the current platform while concurrently trialing other LMS solutions including Adobe Captivate, Storyline and its counterpart Articulate 360 that could play nicely with the existing LMS.
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Adobe Captivate
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Articulate Storyline
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Rise 360
The Findings
Path-to-Purchase
By aligning the internal learning design team with the external marketing stakeholders before the course build, we were able to draft site and script copy to produce a better customer understanding of ‘what to expect’, ‘who it was for’ and ‘what you would learn’ if one were to purchase the course.
True Interactivity
In the end we chose the build-by-block simplicity of Rise 360 that could be built outside of the Pointsbuild LMS platform and integrated via an exported Scorm file. The advantages were two-fold:
Articulate 360 allowed for a broader use of interactivity, design work and video content
And anticipated the future use of learning design contractors to build independently and deliver finished course content for review, integration and launch.
Cohesive Visual Language
Early course development took great pains to establish an iconic and visual language to simplify the navigation and make it easier for users to find the information and resources they need. The clear, concise language and visual cues helped to guide users from platform, through learning material and their ultimate certification.
Improved Accessibility
To ensure the platform met the strict government accessibility requirements, all course content was developed to WCAG 2.0 standards so as to be usable for users with disabilities, including screen reader compatibility and keyboard navigation.
Personalized Learning Paths
By instituting learning paths tailored for individual learners we allowed users to track their progress, leave and return to the same position and access resources designed for their specific learning needs.
Content Engagement
The interactive features of the articulate platform were complimented with visual design, illustrative animations and video content to increase engagement and motivate users to complete the course..
True Course Interactivity
True Course Interactivity
Content Engagement
The Outcome
The development of the ABCB’s NCC user-centric design approach to online learning established the base template from which each of the subsequent courses were developed, making production simpler, communication channels more streamline, and success achievable inside a tight timeline.
Understanding the key pain points, needs and desires of the end-user was critical to delivering relevant course content across such a wide array of practitioner types and disciplines.
Conclusion
While elements of the process evolved throughout the 18-month production cycle, the hard work done at the beginning allowed the NCC CPD project to become the flagship standard of learning potential for both the Australian Building Codes Board and Pointsbuild.
By using a user-first design approach, we were able to address the challenges facing the ABCB LMS and improve the overall user experience for a diverse range of users. The redesigned platform has been successful in increasing user engagement and providing a more accessible and user-friendly learning experience for industry professionals and stakeholders.