Erin Delventhal
Warning Label Training
Audience: On-site maintenance employees; custodians, property managers and grounds maintenance.
Responsibilities: Instructional design; visual design to match corporate branding; scenario writing; eLearning development
Tools Used: Storyline 360, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Figma
Overview
The Diocese of Cleveland nationally has one of the highest combined primary and secondary school enrollment in the country with 107 schools supporting 42,000 students. These schools are managed by a team of custodians, property managers and grounds maintenance. They approached me with the aim of improving their compliance training on chemical hazard safety.
Challenge
The Diocese of Cleveland Schools’ compliance training for communicating chemical hazards and safety procedures to their associates was in need of an update. Their current training system was a narrated slideshow that they felt lacked engagement and did not provide adequate ways to assess associates’ understanding of the content. Additionally, they wanted the training to match the look and relevance of the job tasks.
My Solution
For my final solution, I developed a 6-module online learning program that satisfied the Diocese of Cleveland’s compliance standards. Each module consisted of micro lessons that broke the content into manageable segments. Lessons focused on:
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How to read chemical labels
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How to locate and interpret safety data sheets
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How to interpret alternative labeling
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Recognizing pictograms and their meanings
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Safety measures for working with chemicals
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Methods of retrieving hazard information on the job site
Users could interact with the lessons at their own pace to complete each module.
My Process
I started by reviewing the existing content to determine a logical way to group and present the information at a high level. After outlining the learning content, I recommended strategies that would allow learners to apply that content to their work situations. This made content relevant to the learners and promoted recall on the job.
One way this was accomplished was by adding real-life safety challenges that allowed learners to consider issues they may encounter in the workplace and apply their knowledge of newly-acquired hazard training in a safe way. I worked closely with the Diosese’s subject matter expert to write scripts for these safety challenges that represented authentic situations and consequences with which the target audience could relate.
With a completed script and storyboard in place, I turned my attention to creating the visual elements for the project. In addition to incorporating the Cleveland Dioces’s branding elements and themes, I plotted the user journey to consider what visual features and interactive elements to incorporate into the design that would increase engagement levels and promote understanding.
I organized related content and added tab and flip-panel formats where appropriate that allowed the learner to advance through at their own pace.
I used click-to-reveal slides for the user to interact with the various parts of a chemical label and identify the meanings of the nine pictograms described in the program.
At the end of each module, I provided practice opportunities for the learner to apply what they learned in the lessons.
Because much of the audience for this project level of background education varies, I used visual feedback in addition to written feedback to help provide context cues to the learner about how they were doing as they worked through the practice activities.
To check for understanding, I added opportunities for formative assessment throughout the program.
In addition, associates were involved in usability testing throughout the project. This allowed us to identify challenging points throughout development and make necessary adjustments. This kept the project user-focused and gave us real, relevant data to use throughout development to ensure that our finished project was meeting our end performance goals.
