WBT for Automotive Service Technicians

As an instructional design consultant on this contract, I partnered with Universal Technical Institute and their subcontractor Raytheon to build and deliver a large number of online courses for UTI’s automotive technician school. Raytheon had started the contract and then had brought me on to help manage the direction, quality, and steady production flow across multiple third parties involved in this large effort.

On a daily basis I guided development of program learning objectives, design documents, storyboards, student/instructor ILT guide drafts, labs, interactions, audio, and WBT review cycles and QA. I worked with UTI and subcontractor SMEs and IDs during reviews of complex automotive repair content.

One cool thing about working with the Raytheon team on this project was the rich history and experience they have with simulation. This was a lot of fun as a designer. For example, I could have a user connect a meter by dragging and dropping terminals, adjust it, turn the key to start the engine, read the meter, adjust the meter, and see a result that they could then recommend an action on. Often, and especially at that point in time, there are limitations around what is cost effective to build, but this was not one of those times. As a result, the modules were rich with complex interactions that had multiple layers and variables – perfect for intelligent, hands-on users who’d probably prefer being in the shop rather than sitting behind a computer to take their training.

Completed in 2010, this project was built in HTML and Flash, and exists in that middle ground between the older tools like Authorware and the current ones we have like Storyline.