It takes a lot of work to look this good.

After all my years of doing this (and they aren't many, but I should know better by now) it surprises me every time the amount energy and effort it takes to sometimes make the simplest thing.

Photo by: T.Parish

I have a presentation I'm doing this week (I'll post it in a follow-up posting here).  It's only a 20 minute presentation.  The planning time, layout, screen capturing, practicing, re-editing, re-practicing, blah, blah, blah it has taken to have this to the quality and look I want it to have has taken roughly 8 hours.

Really!

There were some interruptions in the middle of all that time, but still.  It's this development time that stuns people that never do this kind of work (presentations, elearning, etc).  They often assume 20 minute presentation should take 30 minutes to make.  Or an hour course should take about 2 hours to make.

The reality of it all, is it takes a great considerable more effort and time to design quality work.

If you're every looking for a rough guide of course design times look here:

• How long does it take to create e-learning? - Clive Sheppard (Summary)
• How long does it take to create e-learning? - Bryan Chapman (Slideshare)
• Design Times Ratio - www.langevin.com