Streamlined Production of Interactive Training Courses
Faster production, better performance.
At MindForge, our goal was to transform safety training into engaging, memorable experiences that helped prevent accidents on job sites. Early on, we spent multiple years developing a single VR course. It was high quality, but too slow and inaccessible to make the widespread impact we wanted. We needed a way to scale our library faster so we could reach more workers.
Challenge
Produce more courses, more quickly, and in a format that’s accessible and easy to understand by everyday construction workers - All without losing the unique and entertaining interactive approach we prided ourselves in.
Solution
Simplify visual graphics to not only allow smoother performance on less-powerful mobile devices, but also increase the speed in which assets can be created. Better plan pre-production in order to reduce or eliminate last minute changes or corrections. Develop a simpler, more formulaic approach to how we design all future courses.
Process
As the Creative Team Lead, I spearheaded a movement to overhaul our entire art style - Transitioning our courses from a muddy, pseudo-realism to a more simplified, bright, and colorful look. Not only did our art appear cleaner and ran better on low-end mobile devices, but if gave our work a distinct look that made us stand out from other learning courses on the market. And the reduction in the amount of physically-based texture maps that needed to be produced ended up reducing production time for each new asset.
To cut down on last-minute edits and rework, I implemented a detailed storyboarding pass at the start of each project. I worked hand-in-hand with our design team to translate their ideas to drawings, allowing us to visualize and walk through entire courses prior to any of the art or voice-work being created. This work helped the design team and clients visualize their own thoughts while also giving the art team a clear map for what needed to be made.
I led discussions to design a simplified and repeatable course formula and oversaw its development. Once implemented, it allowed us to start each project from a consistent starting place - no longer needing to reinvent functionality with every new course. All we had to do was swap in and out new art and dialog whenever necessary.
Result
We scaled production from 1–3 courses a year to 8+ annually, rapidly expanding our published training library and more quickly establishing ourselves as a well-known name in the safety training industry. Our courses received and average user rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars, with frequent positive customer feedback.