A vaccination program revitalized, then translated to Spanish
7.5 hours of recorded conversation, four courses, then all four again in Spanish. About 69,000 words.
1. Who they were and what they already had
National vaccination advocacy, community health
A national nonprofit working on vaccination and community health. The course trains the people who have those conversations in their own neighborhoods.
They already had 7.5 hours of it, live on their own platform, free to take, in English and Spanish. It had been built out of recorded Zoom conversations. Four courses of people talking.
I didn’t start by building anything. They paid me to evaluate what they already had, on its own, as its own piece of work. That’s a Course Plan bought by itself, and it’s how I’d rather start.
2. What was in the way
They were supposed to update the content twice a year, and they couldn’t.
Recorded conversation doesn’t come apart into sections. A fact goes out of date somewhere in the middle of a long video, and there’s no way to change just that fact.
The original had been built for community health workers in one state. They wanted one course that worked for community health workers anywhere, and for advocates and educators too.
SME time was the constraint on the schedule. The review window moved at least four times.
3. How the Structured Build ran on it
Module 4’s storyboard came back covered in changes.
The content was still written for community health workers in Texas, which is exactly who the original had been made for. Character names. Examples. Place names. All of it had to move, because a course for everybody can’t be set in one state with one job title in it.
That is what the storyboard is for. It was still a document, so the fix cost a markup pass. The same change after the build would have taken apart the course, three animated videos, and the narration underneath them.
It had happened once already. At the module 2 storyboard, a whole lesson came out. It never got built at all.
A few months later they came back and asked for all four courses in Spanish.
Their plan was to storyboard the whole thing again from the start. I proposed a different route. Export each course as XLIFF, translate that file, have a native speaker review it, then import it back. It leaves the build intact and puts the review where the words actually are.
The review ran four rounds, two on the storyboards and two on the built courses. Round 1 was one reviewer working alone. I cleared everything she raised before round 2 opened, so the next two reviewers read a corrected document instead of arguing with a marked-up one. That is the same rule that makes two rounds enough on an English build.
It still took about six months against a 12 week plan. Some of that was feedback arriving in final review that wasn’t final-review feedback. Some was lesson order breaking against the English master. And some was a bug in their platform that blocked the Spanish upload, which I filed and their vendor fixed a week later.
Two decisions were never mine to make. What the program is called in Spanish was one. What the buttons say was the other, down to every one reading the same word.
4. What shipped
Four courses in Rise 360, three animated videos in each, built down from 7.5 hours toward a 4 to 5 hour target. A 10 question quiz in every course. A survey before and after. A guide for running the twice-yearly update, which was the problem that started all of this. A written and filmed walkthrough of how to export a course and load it onto their platform, so nobody has to ask me how.
Then all four again in Spanish. About 69,000 words. The videos translated, the graphics replaced, four Spanish storyboards, and a Spanish name for the program that they chose.
The animation source files went to them at handoff.
5. What it produced
Over 400 people registered in the first few months after launch, and that is counting whole courses. Counted by module it is higher.
Accessibility was not written into this brief. It’s not in the proposal, either contract, or any email between us. The video shipped captioned and with transcripts. That is all there is on this one.
They asked for the second half themselves, unprompted, a few months after the first four went live. Sign-off on the Spanish courses came in July, and all four are live.
6. What he said
“You did a fantastic job putting our vision together!”
Education director, national vaccination advocacy, community health