Healthcare Workers Practice Cancer Prevention Conversations with Patients
This scenario-based eLearning experience helps healthcare workers build community-informed communication skills to engage screening-hesitant patients in cancer prevention conversations.
Audience: Community healthcare workers and healthcare providers
Responsibilities: Instructional Design (needs analysis, action mapping, storyboarding) eLearning Development (wireframes, mockups, authoring), JavaScript Programming, Stakeholder Engagement and Quality Assurance
Tools Used: Articulate Storyline 360, Figma, MindMeister, Google Docs, Miro, SnagIt
The Problem
Many patients decline cancer screenings due to cultural values, past trauma, socioeconomic barriers and misinformation. Since early detection is so important in cancer prevention, healthcare providers often take a direct approach, urging patients to get screened. While well-intended, this can sometimes backfire—especially for patients who feel unsure or hesitant about screening.
The C-ME to SCREEN ME team at the Masonic Cancer Center (MCC) at the University of Minnesota developed a community-informed motivational interviewing (MI) approach that puts the patient’s community values, prior experiences and access to care at the forefront of cancer prevention conversations.
The C-ME team approached me to design a learning experience that would help community healthcare workers (CHWs) build trust with patients and navigate screening hesitancy with empathy and sensitivity.
Although essential to cancer prevention efforts, CHWs often receive only basic MI training without opportunities for targeted practice. The C-ME team needed a scalable, engaging solution to help them practice community-informed MI skills in real-world scenarios.
The Solution
To bridge this gap, I proposed a comprehensive training solution consisting of:
A microlearning hub – Providing foundational knowledge of C-ME motivational interviewing principles, key resources, and support materials for on-demand reference.
A four-module, scenario-based eLearning simulation – Allowing CHWs to practice cervical health outreach conversations in a low-risk environment, adapting to increasing difficulty levels with mentor tips, feedback and decision-based consequences.
This demo highlights the first module of the eLearning simulation, showcasing how learners engage in patient conversations and the consequences of their communication decisions. Parts of the training, including links to the microlearning hub and more advanced modules, have been modified for demo purposes per agreement with the client.
My Process
I collaborated closely with the C-ME team, who brought deep expertise in community-informed messaging and in-person training of healthcare professionals. My role was to translate their research into actionable learning goals and an engaging eLearning experience.
Since there were no existing scripts for how CHWs should approach these conversations, I conducted a deep dive into peer-reviewed studies and guidance from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), among other organizations.
My research background helped me use this documentation to distill best practices and develop realistic situations, patient profiles and dialogue for learner practice. I kept my stakeholders up to speed on project progress with weekly updates, timelines and callouts when action was required on their end.
Throughout the design process, I strived to keep the learner experience front and center. Each module is built for engagement and learner agency, offering on-demand support, flexible pacing and interactive decision-making to reinforce key skills.
To ensure the training focused on real-world impact, I began by creating an action map with guidance from a C-ME principal investigator, who acted as the primary subject matter expert (SME). I led the process of translating the high-level, evidence-based principles of the C-ME framework into specific learner actions that could significantly influence cancer screening conversations.
Following Cathy Moore’s action mapping approach, I asked probing questions to pinpoint critical mistakes CHWs might make. For example, the C-ME team identified failing to bring up the cancer screening conversation at all as a common yet serious misstep. I guided discussions to uncover why this happens and how to model behavior change in the eLearning.
As a result, this high-priority action became one of the first decision points in Module 1, ensuring learners practiced overcoming this challenge from the start. Working closely with the SME, I continued this approach to identify three additional actions learners need to take in order to change their behavior when talking to patients about cervical cancer prevention.
Action Map
The action map guided my development of a text-based storyboard with programming notes. To model realistic patient conversations, I worked with SMEs to design a scenario where CHWs make cervical health outreach calls.
Text-based Storyboard
For Module 1, I designed a three-question mastery loop, where each question presents the learner with three choices: one correct action and two distractors.
Correct choices lead to positive outcomes and scenario progression.
Incorrect choices trigger real-life consequences for the clinic and patient health outcomes, along with immediate explanatory feedback.
Learners can retry until they make the correct selection.
Because explanatory feedback is key to an effective simulation, I integrated on-demand mentor tips and sensory cues to reinforce correct decisions. To enhance engagement, I followed Mayer’s personalization principle, using a conversational tone and a variable to insert the learner’s name at key moments in the simulation to create a sense of social presence.
Upon approval of the storyboard, I created a mood board to help guide the look and feel of the project. My intent was to create an inviting feel to the project, with crisp graphic elements and high contrast ratios for optimal web accessibility.
Mood Board & Style Guide
At this stage, I also created a style guide incorporating the client’s logos and institutional colors alongside white and teal (cervical cancer awareness ribbon colors) for branding integration and thematic consistency.
Before eLearning development began, the C-ME team had commissioned vector-based educational materials for cervical health awareness. To ensure visual consistency, I built the simulation’s world around these assets, aligning with Mayer’s multimedia principle to limit unnecessary visual complexity.
The available characters lacked customizable expressions and poses needed for the scenarios. I resolved this by modifying the vector assets in Figma and sourcing additional visuals in a matching style.
Custom Visual Assets
Finally, I used Figma to develop multiple wireframes and mockups for each type of slide that would appear in the eLearning to plan an intuitive interface for learners. I iterated on the static graphic elements in Figma and refined them through stakeholder feedback and peer reviews.
Wireframes and Mockups
To test functionality and gather feedback, I developed an interactive prototype in Articulate Storyline 360 featuring the first and second scenario-based questions and fully functional interactive elements, including buttons, mentor support and feedback mechanisms.
Stakeholder feedback was crucial to ensure the design was engaging, intuitive and aligned with real-world healthcare conversations before moving into full development. Feedback from the C-ME team led to small but meaningful adjustments, such as ensuring that the learner character introduced themselves at the start of the patient call and fine-tuning navigation and pacing for a smoother learner experience.
Interactive Prototype
After additional rounds of internal quality control, the prototype was approved and I completed full development in Articulate Storyline 360. This was a very rewarding process that put my Storyline skills to the test as I built the rest of the slides using states, layers, triggers (standard and conditional), and variables.
Full Development
Title screen with custom name variable field
Clip of animated “Meet the Mentor” screen
Key features of the final product include:
Custom Visuals: To immerse learners in a community clinic setting, I modified C-ME character assets in Figma, adding new characters, expressions and postures for better storytelling.
Social Presence: The eLearning includes subtle JavaScript-powered blinking animations for the supervisor and mentor characters. Although in cartoon form, studies show that by making these characters feel more human-like through gestures and eye-gaze, they can create a stronger sense of social presence that is conducive to learning.
Intentional Multimedia FX: Audio cues reinforce speaker turns and correct choices in decision-making sequences. Similarly, subtle visual changes reflect the patient’s emotional responses to learner actions.
Animated Dialogue & Storytelling: The animated dialogue introduces narrative uncertainty, making learners actively anticipate what happens next. These dialogue scenes establish context and drive the story forward when correct choices are made.
Learner Control: Following Mayer’s segmentation principle, I designed modular learning chunks, giving learners control over pacing and navigation.
On-demand Mentor Support: Learners can access Amina, their peer mentor, when they are unsure of how to respond to a patient or situation. Each decision point includes a corresponding mentor prompt, allowing for targeted support.
Results and Takeaways
The C-ME team was highly satisfied with Module 1 and development is now underway for Modules 2-4. Once complete, these modules and additional resources will be disseminated through the Masonic Cancer Center at the University of Minnesota, expanding access to community-informed motivational interviewing training for healthcare workers.
As the lead learning consultant, I oversaw every step of this project—from conception to design and development. One of my main takeaways was the invaluable importance of working closely with SMEs and stakeholders throughout the entire process.
Through our conversations, I gained firsthand insight into the daily realities of healthcare workers and the barriers to cervical cancer prevention in different communities. This deep understanding allowed me to design training that was not just educational but practical and relevant to their work.
Effective collaboration required a balance of active listening, expectation management and clear communication. The C-ME team brought expertise in clinical research and community outreach, while I brought expertise in learning design and instructional strategy.
By aligning instructional design best practices with the real-world needs of healthcare workers, we created a targeted, impactful learning solution that supports their ability to build trust with patients and encourage them to make informed decisions about their health.
Future Goals
This project deepened my interest in JavaScript for eLearning, and I plan to continue integrating it to enhance interactivity in future projects. Additionally, my background in research and evaluation makes me eager to explore xAPI to better track learner performance and engagement.
I’m particularly interested in analyzing how learners interact with this eLearning experience—where they struggle, what support they seek and how effectively they apply motivational interviewing skills. By leveraging xAPI data, I could assess learning patterns and refine future iterations to better support learners.
This approach aligns with my passion for data-driven instructional design, ensuring learning experiences are not only engaging but measurably effective.