How to Maximize the Learner Experience

Hello everyone, welcome, welcome. Hi everyone. Okay, we're gonna go ahead and get started. Welcome to "Trauma-Informed Design and Genially: How to Maximize the Learner Experience." I'm Gabby, I'm a trauma-informed learning experience designer and the CEO of the Covan Group.

I've been working in the fields of behavior, trauma-informed work and instructional design for over 10 years. Dani and I both work together in a variety of mediums as business partners and subject matter experts, as well as social impact catalysts for the Integrate Trauma-Informed Network, and Genially ambassadors. Integrate is a trauma-informed network, it's a great agency, it's doing some great things, and it's the reason this project was born. So we'll include links at the end of our presentation so you can check them out.

And I am Dani. I am the CEO of Moment of Truth, which is a company that also does coaching and design consulting. I'm a trauma-informed resilience coach and a human-centered corporate design strategist. I'm also getting my PhD right now in counseling and traumatology, and also, like Gabby said, I'm a subject matter expert and social impact catalyst for Integrate Trauma-Informed Network as well. Welcome, welcome.

All right, so we're going to dive into trauma-informed design thinking, so we're gonna go ahead and get started. Just a quick overview: we're gonna take a look at some learning objectives, trauma-informed design thinking, and talk a little bit about cognitive load. Don't worry if you don't know these terms, we're going to dive right into them with you. We're going to talk about visual synergy, streamlined workflows, a call to action, and then go over our thank yous, just some fun photos of us.

Some learning objectives. Participants, you're going to identify the principles of trauma-informed design thinking, cognitive load theory and how it relates to visual consistency and synergy, and streamlined workflows for learner-centered experiences. Secondly, you're going to apply visual consistency or synergy, cognitive load management and efficient workflows, which will help you to design inclusive learning materials for diverse learners, effective comprehension and application.

All right, so we're going to dive right into these trauma-informed design thinking principles. Trauma-informed design thinking is an approach that embraces trauma awareness in the design process. Many of you may not be familiar with it, that's okay, we're here to demystify TID, or trauma-informed design, and we're going to challenge that stigma around trauma too, especially across design processes. This particular method or approach actually ensures that our designs are humane, considerate, supportive and healing for all individuals, also recognizing that everyone has experienced some level of trauma at some point in their lives.

So by using this approach, we're going to create environments, products and experiences that are sensitive, supportive and healing for individuals who have experienced trauma. There are six trauma-informed principles. These were created by SAMHSA; if you haven't checked them out, please do so. We'll also include some of those resources at the end of our presentation.

These six principles are: peer support; trustworthiness and transparency; safety; collaboration and mutuality; empowerment, voice and choice; and cultural, historical and gender sensitivity and inclusivity. Okay, we're going to dive a little bit into each of these. I actually have my screen up, so I cannot see what's going on in the chat, so I'm gonna let Dani navigate the chat. And Dani, if there's any questions, please stop me in the middle of my sentence. Sure.

Perfect. So let's take a look at peer support. Peer support emphasizes mutual respect and collaboration among learners. It helps to create a supportive learning community, encourages shared learning and fosters a sense of camaraderie among learners. This is really important because it does acknowledge the power of peer support in enhancing the learning experience.

Now we're going to dive into trustworthiness and transparency. If you all have known a brand name, you have placed some sort of trust into that brand name. For instance, in the U.S., things like McDonald's, Nike, etc.: we expect a certain type of quality when we purchase any of their products. That is a trust that we're placing in them, and the same goes with anything else that we create, design-wise or product-wise.

So trustworthiness and transparency really prioritizes transparent communication between the product and the learner, building trust between educators and learners, enabling an open dialogue and fostering a positive learning atmosphere. We can also think a little bit about how creating a trustworthy learning space is crucial. Now, we do have to acknowledge that trust is not assumed in spaces, because trust does look different for everyone, but it is something that we should be striving for in our product design and content design.

Next up is safety. Safety also is not assumed; safety looks different for everyone. In trauma-informed design thinking, safety means ensuring a learning environment where every learner feels secure and empowered. It's about offering choices and respecting individuals' boundaries, as well as allowing learners to engage comfortably. Dani will go through this a little bit later, talking about how we navigate pathways differently, even providing multiple different opportunities of engagement that would also allow for anonymity. It's also making sure that the data that's being collected in our lovely SCORM packages has an opportunity to be anonymous as well.

Next up is collaboration and mutuality. This particular principle does highlight the power of collaborative learning, which we all know and love, especially in our instructional design world. Trauma-informed design thinking really encourages active participation, empowering learners to engage in co-creation; that's really big there. Collaboration fosters a sense of community where everyone contributes to the learning process. So for instance, I should have definitely collaborated a little bit earlier with Dani to notice that I have an uppercase S at the end of my "empowers." That's just a side note, a little joke there.

Empowerment, voice and choice. Empowering learners is really at the heart of trauma-informed design thinking. This is really crucial because it involves giving learners a voice, allowing them to make choices in their own learning journey, and that empowerment actually leads to increased active engagement and a sense of ownership over the learning experience. If you all caught Julie Johnson from Integrate Trauma-Informed Network's accessibility webinar with Genially that she did recently, this is a big part of that: really allowing voice and choice into that accessibility piece as well.

And our last one, this one's a big one for our DEI folks out there, you're gonna love this. One of the last trauma-informed design thinking principles is cultural, historical and gender sensitivity and inclusivity. This is really about recognizing that diverse backgrounds are apparent, right, and everybody has a different background, but that's actually really essential to trauma-informed design and keeping that filter on as we create anything: content, product, etc. It really does ensure that learning experiences are culturally sensitive and inclusive, respecting the unique perspectives of each learner. And that inclusivity actually promotes a sense of belonging and understanding, which then circles back around to collaboration and mutuality; empowerment, voice and choice; peer support; trustworthiness and transparency; and safety.

Trauma-informed design thinking actively considers cognitive load. Cognitive load is how we process information, and so when we're thinking about trauma-informed design thinking principles, we are recognizing the impact of trauma on information processing. Integrating trauma-informed principles ensures that the learning experience is cognitively manageable, fostering a more effective and empathetic educational environment.

So let's talk a little bit about how our brains handle learning tasks, or cognitive load. Let's dig in a little bit. There are three types of cognitive load. The natural difficulty of a task, which is considered intrinsic. Extra effort, which is needed due to unclear instructions or confusing design processes: that's extraneous. And then the effort needed to understand new information and connect it to knowledge we already have is called germane.

Traumatic experiences can make it very hard to focus and learn, so to help, learning materials should be very clear and interesting, not too hard or too easy. Animated stories, or storytelling with vivid and engaging pictures or videos: animated videos make learning fun, but they also help us to connect with the content and each other in a safe space. So by employing clear and concise communication, visual synergy and streamlined workflows, we're going to minimize the cognitive overload for learners, which enhances their ability to comprehend and retain information. And we're going to show you how to do this with Genially.

So what is Genially, if you didn't know? It's a digital authoring tool that educators and designers can utilize to create a wide array of assets. Today we're going to dig into Genially's amazing resources within e-learning development, from our roles, both Dani and I, as learning experience designers. So let's explore how Genially effortlessly aids designers in applying trauma-informed design thinking principles and consideration for cognitive load to the design process. We're going to discuss the application of those trauma-informed design thinking principles to enhance the learner experience, and we're going to ensure that our designs are not just innovative but also deeply humane. And so for that, I'm going to turn it over to Dani for our visual synergy.

Awesome, thank you Gabby. I also just wanted to introduce someone who came in a little bit late, but what kid doesn't? This is Luca, and he actually works with me. What's your title, what's your role? Administrative assistant for Moment of Truth. Come here, come in the camera. So he is going to help me with this discussion as well, when we talk about some of the cool parts of design and trauma-informed design, because he helps me out a lot with that. Do you want to start with just reading what that says? Visual consistency. That's just a hard word for you. Gabby, you can go to the next slide, thanks.

So visual synergy is really, really important, and there are a couple ways in Genially that you can do this, but first we'll talk about what it is. With visual synergy in design, our brains tend to humanize designs and apply human-like traits and personalities to them. So it works kind of the same: to have seamless branding, to develop trust and portray your brand as an expert professional in your field. Can you think of any brands that you really like? Nike. When you see their logo, when you see their colors, is that something where you're like, "Oh, that's Nike," you think of it right away? Yes. Awesome.

What about McDonald's? You know their branding, their colors. They're yellow. Yeah, and red, right, and the big M. So when you see McDonald's, you trust that they're gonna have really good food, right? Yeah. Also there's a sense of safety and predictability, like we just talked about. There's a crucial connection there: just like in any design, creating a sense of safety and predictability is paramount in trauma-informed design.

So visual synergy, we would say, is the practice of using the same design elements consistently across materials. It's like the secret sauce to keep frustration low, cognitive load balanced, because you don't want it to be too high or too low, and then attention and focus on your training and the potential of your training pretty high. Imagine trying to follow a recipe where the ingredients keep changing names: it would be really frustrating. So we want to keep everything synergized. It also helps learners to stay engaged, which is really what we want to maximize potential in our workshops and trainings.

And then accessibility. It's like the warm and welcoming embrace that says: you can trust this environment, it won't surprise or overwhelm you. There are some people that like surprises. Do you like surprises? Yeah. The good kind of surprises, right, not bad ones, that wouldn't really be a good surprise. So trauma-informed design is all about ensuring that our digital materials and interactions are safe and accessible for everyone, including individuals who've experienced trauma, which is like everybody. So visual synergy is important. Gabby, I think you can move on to the next slide. Do you have anything to add?

Oh no, I don't believe that. How did that happen? Hold on one second, a little bit of a technical difficulty there, not really sure how that happened. I apologize, one second, friends and learners and designers, just let me get us back on track. A little technical difficulty today. I'm gonna open up the deck and then share. There we go. One second, let me get to where we need to be. A quick recap for everyone who just joined: we will provide access to all of these resources after the webinar too, just so you're aware. There we go, here we go.

So, visual consistency in a practical sense. If we have a brand, we typically have colors, fonts and some kind of branding kit. This is kind of the simplest form of it, but Genially makes it really, really easy. There are the digital platforms that we like to use; my favorite is Canva, I know people use other ones. You can make your branding kit, set your colors, set your fonts, set your imagery, your logos, and then you can just copy and paste that right into Genially so that everything is streamlined. It makes it really easy. Essentially, the bare bones of this are the colors and the fonts, so I was just going to talk about how you might get those in from either Canva or another platform into Genially.

So if you could just hover over the first tooltip. These are hex codes, each of these colors right here. Usually you can find the hex codes in another platform and then just copy them right over, and you'll have your color palette. Dani, I just want to jump in: for most designers, you already know what hex codes are, but for some of our graphic designers, the CMYK would also be the same code, and for our interior designers, you would be able to locate the CMYK on the Pantones. Thank you. Yeah, I do all digital design, so that's a really good thing to know.

And then there's the fonts. These are just a few of my fonts, I have way too many on there, but a few of the ones that are part of my brand, and I uploaded those myself, which Genially allows you to do. So if you have those fonts in other platforms, or you download them, or you have them on your computer saved somewhere else, you can put them right into Genially. So now you have a totally streamlined brand: the building blocks for creating an environment that feels safe and reliable to your audience.

It looks like we have a question, or a statement: that's very interesting, the typography you use or even the colors could affect the intonation, or the information that someone gets when reading it. Yes, that's really important, right? And there's even color psychology too, that, if you're a designer, you've probably dabbled in or heard about: different colors give off different vibes, different moods. How do you feel when you see the color red? Hungry. Hungry, really? Yeah, like McDonald's, usually every sign is red. Scientists believe that when you see the color red it makes you hungry. Oh, well, I didn't know that, maybe we should fact-check it, but he's pretty smart, so we'll check that out. He's my fact checker.

Thanks Luca for that fun fact. It's also very important to consider the content topic along with the color and the typography that you're utilizing. So for instance, if you are doing a topic on something that may already be super sensitive, such as restorative approaches in the workplace or mental health first aid in some way, shape or form, if you're creating an e-learning program on that, you want to make sure that the colors that you utilize during your learning program are actually going to be more on that soothing, calming side, very similar to this branding kit selection of colors that Dani has thrown up here for us. And you'd want to stay away from colors like Luca mentioned, red: color psychology would say that it could actually potentially trigger some type of aggression, or hunger in Luca's case. So think about those in consideration when you are working on specific content topics, as well as what type of engagement you're asking for from your learner.

Also, if you're trying to be intentional about your brand colors, fonts, etc., there are a ton of resources that you can access. I didn't include any on here, but if that's something you are interested in, we are going to provide our LinkedIn information and I'd be happy to share some of those resources with you: how to choose a color palette, or how to choose fonts and pair fonts, because it can be a little bit scary. But when it all comes together and you have something that you love that represents your brand, it really is a powerful statement, and it really does affect the people that are interacting with your brand too. Awesome. Anything else to add, Gabby? I don't think so, I think you covered it well. All right, let's move on.

All right, awesome. So this might get a little clunky, guys, but this is our video how-to. These are just parts of a video training that Gabby and I recently put together. It was a mental health first aid, veteran-specific, trauma-informed workshop training that we made for an agency that had requested it. Obviously I didn't include the whole 40-minute training, but I did include some parts of it. And like I talked about earlier, streamlining your workflow can be really difficult if you are trying to navigate different platforms that you're not fully well-versed in. It takes us a while to become an expert, to get well-versed in a platform. Like I said, I really, really like Canva, I use it all the time for a lot of different things, and different designers have their own preferences for platforms that they like to use.

So the nice thing about Genially is you don't have to choose, you don't have to say, "I can't use that anymore." It integrates really well with all the other platforms: you can embed videos that you make, you can embed other things that you make, you can link to different things, pop-up windows. So what we're gonna do here is I'm going to show you parts of the video that, when I put it into Genially for the full immersive experience of training, I added some interactive elements to, which enhance both the storytelling elements of it and the interactivity, which ultimately maximizes learner potential. So rather than just watching a video, now you're interacting with that video training. Awesome, you can go ahead and press play.

"Welcome to your first training module: the human touch in mental health support. Throughout this course you will explore mental health in a completely new and hope-renewing light. It's not just about recognizing pain, but about seeing the person behind the trauma. When trauma-informed care is missing, our approach can become mechanical, lacking empathy and disconnected from human values. But what if we could elevate mental health services by embracing not only the mind, but the heart and soul of those we serve? Our vision for mental health support goes beyond traditional care, weaving trauma-informed principles with human-centered compassion."

Okay, I'll have you stop it right there. All right, so let's go back to the beginning. I just wanted to show just the beginning. Yeah. So we're gonna add some interactive elements, and I'm gonna walk you guys through how to do that. Some of my favorites... hold on one sec. Okay, I'm gonna jump into the slide deck for this, one second. We want to show you how to actually do this; they're literally gonna walk you through it. All right, here we go.

Awesome. So the first thing we're gonna do is add some tooltips, and what's good about tooltips is they have the really awesome benefit of adding clear navigation and clear pathways for the user, which we obviously like. It takes off that cognitive load and makes it a little bit simpler, so that you can just be in the training and be present in it. So we're going to add some tooltips for that, and some clickable elements for clear instruction. So Gabby, what I'll have you do is start the video and stop right after the title screens, and that'll probably be a good place to add some tooltips.

Is it not playing? It's wanting to be in edit mode. Oh, yeah, okay. You know what, then what we're gonna do is just do it right on the screen. Sounds good. I didn't realize that, I probably should have taken some screenshots, but that's okay. This is how most designers work anyways, right?

That's how we do it: in the moment, trial and error, when we're learning new tools. Figure it out, that's what we do. So I taught Gabby a few really cool things today where literally she was like, "I did not know you could do that on Genially." Yeah, like those cloud windows that popped up on her infographic with the brain. You're welcome.

I felt like I was a Genially newbie for sure. So what are we gonna add here for our viewers, what are we going to show them? Okay, so we're gonna show them some tooltips on how to work the video. We're gonna add a tooltip on where they can start the video, because it doesn't autostart, so let's add a tooltip that says "click here to start." Very simple.

How would I find the tooltips, is it in interactive elements, resources? Yeah, interactive elements. Good. And then you're gonna go to the buttons, and what's cool about tooltips is you can choose any of these buttons and make them a tooltip. So we want to say "click this button to play," right? So we could add a play button. Great, good job. Luca pointed to that too, he's like, "What's that one?" Luca, we think the same.

Good job. He's my design consultant as well. He watches all my video trainings after and gives me feedback on them; he's always so excited to do that. It's really, really cool, you got to get yourself one of those. He has business cards, if anybody wants one. Top left-hand side of the screen with the toolbar, and I'm gonna change the color just so that it stands out, and we're just gonna make it bright red.

Yeah. And hey Gabby, could you potentially zoom in a little bit? Yeah, I think so. How's that? Yeah, just a little bit, just so you can see it a little bit better. Awesome, perfect. So what we're going to do is pull that tooltip, drag it right over to the middle, and then you're gonna click "add interactivity."

So that's that little hand in the middle. Done. Okay. And then up there on the top left it says "tooltip," that's a short label or description that appears when you hover the mouse, for anybody that is unclear about what a tooltip is. So then what you're going to do is name the element: right up at the top you're just going to give it a little title, so this is going to be "start video."

And then this is really customizable: you can bold the font, you can choose a font, you could choose a color background or highlight it, you can add emojis, links, pictures. It's super fun. So let's see, how about we put "click this to play" or "click this button to start"? I like both. Should we add an emoji or something? Was that Luca? "Click to start"?

He said "click to play the video." Okay, "click to play." And should we add an emoji? Should we add a little play button? Do you think we're getting too many play buttons? Or maybe a smiley face? I like that, let's add a smiley face, he said. Okay, and then what do I do, Dani? And then you are just gonna go down to the bottom and click save, and then you have your tooltip.

So what's gonna happen now is when your learner hovers over that, it's going to give them the tooltip. Yup, it's going to give them the instructions. Gabby, anything to add to that? Well, I was just going to present it so that we could see what that looks like in action on the learner's side once we have that published. And the great thing about Genially is that when you publish, you don't have to publish and save a file, etc.

You can just publish a link and it just stays on Genially, which is nice, if you want to have it hosted on Genially. So I'm just gonna share. Can everyone see the video with the red play button? Sorry, I don't have that screen open. I can see it, we can see it. Okay, perfect. So then there's our hover for our tooltip. Awesome. But it looks like Gabby has black tooltips chosen for this, so that might be a problem. I think we need to cover that.

Yep, I think we need to change the font color, or we need to change the tooltip background. Oh, okay. So since we showed you how to do the tooltip font color, let's show them how to change the tooltip; the two options are white or black. Okay. So let's go into the hamburger menu, the three lines on the right-hand side. You're gonna click that, that's the Genially options and preferences, and then right on the bottom it says... oh, yes, there it is.

"Choose a style for the tooltips." So we're gonna click white. Yep, very good. And then we're gonna scroll back to this hamburger menu later, because we definitely want to talk to you a little bit more about the privacy and the analytics portion, but this is basically your fun designer dashboard for what's gonna happen in the presentation to the learner. Sorry Dani, I just wanted...

Okay, no, you're good. Okay, perfect. So now let's try to preview that tooltip. Okay, let me refresh and share... one second, folks. I think you can also use the preview button, the little eye, is that what you're using? No, I'm going back into the presentation. That could be one option, I was just trying to save time from going back and forth. Gotcha. But there we go, perfect. How's that look?

Also, if you have already shared the Genially URL link and later make amendments to the creation from within the platform, these changes are automatically reflected, so you don't need to share a new link. Awesome, good to know, thank you.

All right, so then something good to do: there are a couple of other instructions that we could add, like how to turn on the closed captioning, how to play with the sound. All really, really good things that we don't want to assume the user knows. So those are some other tooltips that I would add in the same exact way: you could just choose a button that you want to use and then edit the tooltip. So do you want to go ahead and add one more? Maybe we'll add the sound one. Sure. So we'll choose a button that conveys sound. What do you think? That's perfect. And we can customize the color. What color, Luca, what color do you think?

Green? No, blue. Green? Green and black? Yeah, that looks too bright. Yeah, okay, not accessible, right? Dark blue. Okay, how's that, Luca? A little bit lighter, he says, more bluish. There we go, that looks like a navy blue. Yeah, that's good. Okay, we're going to customize this, what are we going to do to it?

So we are going to click the same thing: we're gonna click that little hand, click tooltip. Oh, tooltip, sorry, I was spacing out. I was like, "Oh, I'm just gonna wait here until she tells me what to do." I'm sorry. And then what do you think we should say? It's gonna go by where the sound...

The little sound meter is, so that they can adjust the sound. So what do you think we should prompt them with as a clear instruction? We want to be very clear, so maybe "use this button to adjust the sound." Awesome, "use this to adjust the sound," perfect. So we add an emoji, always.

Thumbs up emoji, he said. I like it. There it is, okay, perfect. Click save. All right, amazing. So that would probably drag down to the bottom, where this little sound adjuster thing would be, and then we'd have that there as an instruction. So I guess you get the gist of how to add tooltips.

So the next thing that would be a really good thing that you would probably want to add, for navigation and clear instruction through the story path, is a clickable arrow or element of some sort that takes you to the next page. So we're gonna go into the same thing: we're gonna choose a button, interactive elements, show more, and choose a button that we like that's an arrow.

A turnaround arrow that's gonna go to the next page? Oh, I think that one would probably be "go back," but we can do that. Hey, that's a good one, just in case they need to go back. Which one? This one is a flip. How about we use this one first? So you want to add a tooltip for going back? Is this the one you want, Luca? Yeah? Okay, we'll use that one. That one would be the repeat. Makes perfect sense.

All right, so this is a great one: very easy, we just want to go to the next page. So I'm gonna add it. Yep, add interactivity, and then "go to page," which jumps to another page of the Genially, and you're gonna hit "next page." And the fun part of this, too, is you can also click the little add on the side, just in case you want to make it super clear. We're gonna add a tooltip on top of the tooltips. Yes. What do you think it should say? "Click to go to next page." "Click here to go to next page," you said. Okay, all right.

Awesome. And you can add that on a bunch of screens if you want, a bunch of slides: you can just copy and paste it and it'll go to the next page. You can make it a link, so you can go to a window. Really cool navigation options there. Or you can take it to any other page in your deck as well: you can click on the actual page and it will go to that page instead. Awesome. So I'm gonna have you... no, I'm gonna have you add a window. This is what we would do for some navigation, for defining user pathways. Something you can use it for is learning objectives in a training: if you don't want to make a separate slide for it, but you want the option of them being able to see the learning objectives. So we're gonna go ahead and do that. We're gonna use a window; this is a really good option.

It doesn't take you too far away from the home. Yeah, the window just pops up, it says the information that you need, and then you can just go back to that slide. Perfect. Gabby, so which window do we like? There are a couple different options. I like to choose just the text one, so we're gonna do that. So we're gonna save and edit that window. Yep. And I'm gonna show you a really fun part of this that I taught Gabby today. Gabby, you're gonna have to go ahead and unlock that background square: click on the window until you get the blue border, and then you're gonna click unlock, and then we're gonna hit replace, and you get a bunch of fun shapes. Luca, what shape do you think for learning objectives?

These are the goals of your training, what you want your learners to learn, but we want to make sure that it's a shape that we can add text to. Remember, we have to tell Gabby which one it is. So do you like this one? No. The heart? Yeah? Okay, he likes the heart. A heart, got it. Awesome, there we go. So instead of all this silly lorem ipsum placeholder text... Yeah, it does make it fun, right?

So let's go ahead and change the text, and what we would do is just put "learning objectives," and you can just put placeholders for it: one to two learning objectives, a typical amount for a low cognitive load. And another really cool, fun tip for those of you who are really into tech. I'm going to go ahead and credit Miss Julie Johnson from Integrate for this one.

She is fantastic. A great thing for cognitive load: if you need to shorten something or paraphrase something, throw it into ChatGPT and give it the prompt "give this to me rephrased in 20 words or less." 20 words is about the maximum for content presentation for cognitive load, so you really want to make sure that when you are presenting snippets of information, it's in 20 words or less. And also, for my educators out there, you all know that America consistently reads at a sixth-grade reading level, so you can also throw it into ChatGPT and say "rephrase at a sixth-grade reading level in 20 words or less." You'll still get the content, but it also makes it accessible for all of your learners, no matter their educational background or cultural background and experiences. Yeah, I'm in third grade. Well, if your audience is third grade, then you might need to reconsider. All right, what do you think of that, Luca? Do you want to change the color? Okay, he says he wants to change the color. So that's something fun we can do too.

What color do you want to add? Red or pink? Red or pink, yeah. We're straying way off from our color palette, but that's okay, we're having fun. That's okay, we haven't been sticking to the color palette, so it's totally fine, go ahead. Okay, all right, that color he says is good. And then let's add a little bit of transparency, and then we might need to reconsider the font color, because we want it to be readable. Perfect, yep, we're gonna probably make it a white font. There you go, perfect, that looks great. And I'm gonna go ahead and share this on our presentation so you can see exactly what this looks like on the learner side. Let me just grab that presentation real quick and get to our cognitive load slide.

Share this tab. So when we click here, you can see we've got a floating thought bubble with a little bit of transparency, and that is our tooltip with our text information as a pop-up window. There you go. Awesome. All right, so that is everything we have until the next thing, which is adding an interactive question. So Gabby, what I'm going to have you do is go back into the video and play that video.

I believe you can actually do it from preview as well, if you wanted to stay in the Genially platform. I hope that's gonna take me all the way through. We lost your... Yeah, hold on one second, let me... I've got too many tabs open. Another life-of-the-designer moment. What happened the other day? Your partner was trying to fix something on your computer and...

And he exited all your tabs. Oh my God, yeah, the designer in me, my heart just dropped. He was like, "It won't work because your RAM is being used up, because you have so many tabs open." I happened to have Figma, Genially, Canva, everything open, but I have multiple Chrome browsers with multiple tabs, and he shut all of them down, and I literally spent three hours... I couldn't restore, I tried to go in and restore and I couldn't do it, so I spent like three hours reopening everything all over the place. So a lot of people... Close all your tabs, man. Yeah, it's real stressful.

All right, perfect. So if you could hit preview to go ahead and show that video again. Can you see it? You got it? Yeah. Okay, now mind you, we put these tooltips on top of the video, so... Well, we're in present mode, so I can't move them off yet. Okay.

"...you will explore mental health in a completely new and hope-renewing light." Okay, what was that? I'm sorry, Dani. That's okay. I'm gonna have you scroll to where we stopped, the peer experience story. So for this module, that is the interactive element that we made, and what we're going to do is make it interactive using Genially. So you can just start it from here.

"...by embracing not only the mind, but the heart and soul of those we serve. Our vision for mental health support goes beyond traditional care, weaving trauma-informed principles with human-centered compassion. Let's meet John, a 10-year veteran. John faced battles not just on the field, but within himself. In the military, asking for help is seen as weakness, and weakness is perceived as dangerous. Challenging the deeply ingrained culture was one of the toughest things I've ever done. Struggling with anxiety and depression, his biggest fight wasn't recognizing that he needed help, it was overcoming the fear of judgment. Now take a moment to think about how you might be able to help John in your role."

Awesome. So what we would do at that point is add an interactive question, a reflection opportunity. There are a couple of ways that you could go about making this an interactive activity. What we want our learners to do is relate to this scenario and get some deep learning in there, relate it to their job and what they are able to do in their job. So, just as a recap, what it prompted learners to think about is: if John, the veteran, came to them and spoke about what he was going through and came to them for help, given their job, given their expertise, what would they be able to help with?

So we're going to add an interactive question. Gabby, if you could choose the multiple choice option for me in interactive questions. So from the Genially menu, where it says interactive questions, pick multiple choice. Yep, okay, awesome, there we go. So we're gonna go ahead and design it a little bit, it looks a little bit boring, so I'm going to go ahead and do that first. What we want to do for this, since there's not going to be any correct answer, is be a little bit creative with our use of this. Usually, when you're taking a multiple choice test, there's one right answer and the rest are incorrect, right? Well, that's not what we're doing. We're not following the rules, there's no right or wrong. So we're gonna make it so all four of the answers that we have are potentially correct, and when we go ahead and add the question and answers, we'll show you how to do that.

But first, let's go into design. You have the option to make it vertical or horizontal; in this case we're going to leave it vertical. We can customize the colors to match our brand, or whatever color palette you're using for this, so you can go ahead and play with that and add some colors to it. So we're just gonna pick... I'm having a purple mood today, so we're gonna pick purple for our border. For the background, we're just gonna go with a really light purple, kind of like a lilac. We'll go with lilac today. How's that? Perfect, there we go, love that. All right, so now we're going to go in and change the prompt, the question and the four options. So that goes into my content, so I'm going to have you write:

"After an assessment with John, you've determined some of his needs. Consider your position, skills and expertise. Given the choices listed, which are you equipped to handle and help with?" Good. So this is kind of a reflection question, but instead of using the open answer question, we're making it a multiple choice, which is a really cool option. Also, if you are trying to use the statistics or data or feedback in any way, now instead of open answers you have actual chosen, tangible answers that you could use. So we're gonna write the answers.

Okay, so the first one: "finding support groups." After doing the assessment, John needed some support groups; "find a job," "get counseling" and "develop healthy coping skills." All things that John needs, but depending on your job, you may or may not be able to help him with them. So, depending on their job and expertise, they would just go in and choose which ones, and then they'd submit. We can always add a fun response for what they select, or feedback.

Do you want to go ahead? What do you have there, Gabby? "You're a rock star, kiss your brain." I love that, perfect, and it's going to say that for all of them, because they're all correct. Awesome. And then we can go ahead and save it, and that's how you add an interactive question in a creative way. So designers can experiment with different creative approaches, specifically with the interactive questions.

And this will really keep the content engaging and informative, which allows the user and the designer the freedom of empowerment and choice, as well as safety, because there are multiple different pathways and it's very clear-cut, using the navigation and the tooltips. And if you do opt for getting data and statistics, it does ask for an alias, and you can choose that option in the preferences. So there is that sense of safety and trust, because it's anonymous data, but you can use it to co-create and potentially change workshops or trainings in the future, depending on the answers and what information it gives you. Yep. So we hope that we've provided you with some new pieces of information for how to use Genially, specifically when you are implementing trauma-informed design thinking principles, and really taking a look at that cognitive load to make sure that you're really maximizing your learners' experience and their engagement. Remember, trauma-informed design thinking is not just a methodology, it is a compassionate and holistic way of approaching design challenges.

By embracing these six principles that we've discussed, we can create a more empathetic world where design serves as a tool for healing and empowerment, and maximizes the learner experience. If you have any questions, you're more than welcome to stay on and ask some more; we're here for a couple more minutes, and then we will be providing resources, links to the deck, as well as links to our LinkedIn. Dani and I do collaborate quite a lot together, so you're more than welcome to reach out to us. We work on all sorts of different design projects together, so if you're trying to go through something and figure out how to make it trauma-informed design and how to really focus on that cognitive load, we've probably already done it, so we will definitely be available to help you out. So thanks so much. Say bye, Luca. Bye!