Day 3 - Creating myTrailhead content and where to start. In yesterday’s blog, we covered how to create your myTrailhead strategy. Today, we’re going to talk about how to write your actual content.
Firstly, don’t just jump into myTrailhead and start writing! At this point you know your audience, you know what they need to be able to do once they have successfully taken your modules… but you still need to plan your content.
One of the steps that is vital, but often forgotten, is your style guide. How will you and the other writers ensure your content is similar. Plan in advance areas such as terminology, capitalisation, image alignment and borders that you will be using.
Take a moment (or a few) to think about each audience and piece of learning content. Start to write your outline of what your content needs to include. This needs to include your objectives, key learning points, further resources, and how you intend to assess learning at the end of each unit. You should create an outline for each module and all units that are part of it. This should be circulated and agreed before you take any further steps.
Now this has been signed off, you can get your hands dirty getting into your content. Stop! Don’t go into myTrailhead yet… we recommend that you actually write your content outside of the Trail Maker tool. One of the restrictions you will encounter with Trail Maker is it doesn’t easily allow collaboration within the tool itself so we recommend using a collaborative tool such as Google Docs or Quip before moving into Trail Maker – something where you can easily share your content amongst your team and make suggestions until you get to your final version. We like to use Google Docs with the Suggesting option.
You also need to think about your writing style – what is your company culture? Do you prefer a formal or informal approach to your learning? Do you need different styles for different audiences – for example, would you ‘speak’ to your Directors in the same way that you would to your sales reps? This should be defined before you start – especially if there is more than one Writer in the team.
As you start writing your content, although I’m sure you are already an engaging writer, consider how you can connect with your learners even more……as well as your words, what else can you show your users? For processes, consider graphics to explain the flow. For system training, use screenshots and embed videos. These should have been planned in your outline, but it’s ok to make amendments as you go! Here you can see an example in Trailhead:
Finally, how are you assessing your learners? This is where you need to plan your quiz. You should be testing knowledge of your objectives that you included at the beginning, and a best practice approach would see you have a question for each objective identified at the start.
So, you think you are now ready to publish your content? Hold up – this is where your editor steps in. Your content needs to be reviewed by someone else who also knows and understands the topic, and has an overview of all the content to be produced within the project. This will ensure all writers have a similar ‘voice and tone’ and should eliminate the dreaded typo or grammatical error you may have missed.
We also have a myTrailhead webinar on the 17th March where we will explain what myTrailhead is and how it can benefit your users. Don't miss out, register to attend.