Observational Skills in Senior Living

In senior living communities, some of the most important indicators of resident well-being appear outside formal clinical encounters.

Front desk staff, dining teams, housekeeping, maintenance, and activities professionals spend more time in informal proximity to residents than anyone else. Yet these team members are often unsure what matters, what’s appropriate to notice, and when to speak up—particularly when they are not in clinical roles.

This course needed to:

• Build confidence without overstepping scope
• Encourage early reporting without diagnosis
• Reinforce dignity, privacy, and care as shared responsibilities

All within the constraints of a pre-approved instructional script intended for broad distribution across senior living organizations.

Given the length and density of the approved script, the primary design challenge was cognitive load management. I relied on several of Mayer’s Multimedia Principles to shape how the content was experienced:

• Segmenting Principle
  Long narrative sections were broken into short, purposeful segments, allowing learners to control pacing and process ideas in manageable chunks.
• Signaling Principle
  Visual and textual cues were used to highlight key ideas—such as what to observe, what to report, and what not to do—so learners could quickly identify what mattered most.
• Coherence Principle
  Non-essential content, visual noise, and decorative elements were intentionally avoided to keep attention focused on observation, judgment, and care-centered behaviors.
• Modality Principle
  Where appropriate, spoken narration was paired with minimal on-screen text to reduce redundancy and support learners with varied reading comfort levels.
• Personalization Principle
  The script’s conversational tone was preserved and reinforced, helping the course feel supportive and human rather than instructional or corrective.

Together, these principles helped ensure the course felt calm, respectful, and cognitively accessible for a non-clinical healthcare workforce.

This project was delivered within a defined scope and deadline, with limited flexibility around content. To meet timeline expectations without sacrificing quality, I used a focused, production-oriented workflow:

• Established a clear build plan upfront, mapping script sections directly to Storyline scenes to reduce rework.
• Used rapid prototyping for early screens to confirm pacing, tone, and interaction style before full production.
• Applied consistent layout and interaction patterns to streamline development and maintain visual continuity.
• Managed work in short, defined build cycles, allowing progress to remain predictable and deadline-driven.
• Reserved dedicated time for final QA and polish, ensuring accuracy, usability, and tone consistency prior to delivery.

This approach allowed the course to move efficiently from script to finished build while maintaining design integrity and care-centered intent.