As I read online, I bookmark resources I find interesting and useful. I share these links about once a month here on my blog. This post includes links related to AI image generation and editing, accessibility, elearning distribution, behavior engineering, and other useful resources.
AI image generation and editing
A tool for creating character images with the ability to edit expressions, poses, head position, and more. Currently in beta. No free plan, but this has a lot more options than most similar tools.
Free AI photo editor – Edit images online with AI | Freepik
Freepik’s online image editor includes some non AI-features like cropping and color adjustments plus some AI features like generating variations and AI backgrounds. Limited generations and downloads on the free plan.
AI Consistent Character Creator: Poses, Faces & Headshots
This is another AI character image generator that might be worth testing out.
MagicQuill is an online image editing tool focused on AI inpainting of existing images. Upload and image and draw the shape of what you want to add or change in the image. The tool guesses what you want and generates a text prompt for you. If it guesses right, you can run it and generate the edited image. If it guesses wrong, you can tweak the prompt. Open source tool with a CC license; you can get the source code and run it on your own server if you want.
Accessibility
AI-generated audio descriptions for videos. This is a way to improve accessibility and make videos more available to blind and low-vision users. Audio descriptions are time-consuming to create manually, which means most orgs skip them. This could potentially be a way to improve accessibility quickly and cheaply.
Breaking down myths related to typography and accessibility. One space after a period improves accessibility.
How do you write good alt text? What images need alt text? This article from the NN group answers both questions. I learned something new about adding periods to the end of alt text. This framing of the purpose of images and how it affects the alt text is also helpful.
Summary: Images are decorative, functional, or informative. Skip alt text for decorative. Describe the action for functional. Convey the message for informative.
End alt text with a period, even if it isn’t a full sentence. The period ensures that the screen reader pauses after reading the alt text.
Elearning distribution and tracking
Is XCL an alternative to the LMS? | Mark Berthelemy Consulting
Mark Berthelemy reviews Build Capable’s new XCL tool. This is designed as a way to track training completion and other data without using an LMS, just a link to the course or resource. XCL is in beta right now, so some of the issues noted may get solved later.
SCORMBridge: Stream SCORM Content Securely and Seamlessly
This is a tool for distributing SCORM files without providing the actual full file, useful for licensing content to clients. This can also be used to update a single published source file and have the changes propagate through multiple LMSs for different sites.
Behavior engineering
Shifting Focus from Learning to Performance
Tom McDowall shares an overview of Thomas Gilbert’s Behavior Engineering Model as a way to think beyond training and look at other interventions that support improved performance
BEM helps us shift our focus from learning to performance. Instead of just making sure people know stuff, we ensure they can actually do stuff.
BEM breaks down performance into six key factors. These are split into two categories: environmental supports and individual attributes or behavioural repertory. By looking at these factors, we can figure out what’s holding performance back and how to fix it.
Email marketing
I tried every email marketing tool — these are the best (2024)
Reviews of email marketing tools, narrowed down to MailerLite and Brevo. Well-organized explanation of the process of narrowing down the list and what features were important.
Other useful resources and tools
Cassidy | The AI Workspace for your team
Want to use LLMs like ChatGPT but need a more secure option? Cassidy is designed for working securely within organizations as an enterprise AI.
Fugatto AI Audio Generator – Create Unique Sounds and Music with AI
This tool isn’t available yet, but it promises the ability to generate sound effects and other audio based on text prompts. One especially interesting feature for my work is the ability to change the emotion for an existing audio sample. Plenty of AI voice over tools can do neutral narration well now, but they’re all limited for emotional variability. This could be an improvement.
Leonardo: Color tools for design systems
Tool for generating and analyzing color schemes. This site includes a tool for creating color scales for data visualization so that all colors in a range have sufficient contrast. That’s different from the typical color scheme requirements, so it requires a special tool.
Additional curated resources
Check out my complete library of links or my previous bookmarks posts.