Designing Web-Based Training: How to Teach Anyone Anything Anywhere Anytime

12.1. TECHNICAL COMPLEXITY BARS EFFECTIVE TRAINING

Technical complexity threatens WBT from two sides. First, technical complexity frustrates, distracts, and discourages learners, who either waste valuable time in the course or else give up outright. Second, dealing with technical problems can overload instructors and other staff to such a degree that they have little time and energy to devote to the learning activities of the course. They lose enthusiasm for their jobs, and learners sense this.

Technical difficulties are common. When a Web-based course on coaching, developed for the American Management Association, was pilot tested by over 1000 learners at six Fortune 1000 companies, 40% of learners had performance problems [57]. In the same project, four of the six Information Technology departments had trouble distributing and installing the Shockwave plug-in. And the Shockwave plug-in is among the easiest to install. In a project by Mortgage Bankers Association of America, learners had problems downloading and installing plug-ins for Adobe Acrobat documents and PowerPoint slides [58].

Software rots. Your computer worked fine yesterday. You have not changed anything since then. Why is it not working now? The facetious, though painful, answer is that software rots. Programs write where they shouldn't on the disk. A speck of the disk surface flakes off. A cosmic ray from a distant pulsar reverses the magnetic polarity of a tiny patch of your disk or zaps a few bits in memory just ...