Educational software - some ideas

Our next project is to make an "Educational Software" or website of sorts. I'm looking toward making something again in flash (as website design bores me). I don't have a lot of ideas yet but I'm definitely going to do something to do with Astronomy. Though I did have an idea of making a slightly more fictional, futuristic educational software that teaches users about farming on other planets, like in future off-world colonies (Astrofarm?). I made this to show the kind of style I'm thinking of going with:



Today I'm reviewing a flash educational software called Nerve Signaling (http://nobelprize.org/educational_games/medicine/nerve_signaling/game/nerve_signaling.html).

I must say, I do like the style of this piece of software, though I am confused at how a desk with a notebook, pens and scrunched up pages has anything to do with nerves or nerve signalling (maybe the desk of a neuroscience student?)

The software goes for a timeline/page-based approach with each of these pages detailing different facets of the nerve signaling topic. The navigation works reasonably well as there are convenient pop-ups telling you exactly what's on each page, though I must say the buttons are very small (though nicely implemented into the appearance of a nerve cell).

On each page there is a box on the left that displays a short video detailing a discovery or observation of the nerve cell. These videos work reasonably well but they're over a little too fast. On the right side there is a box with raw text, explaining in detail each facet. I personally find this large, bland block of text to be a little confronting and not very user-friendly. Perhaps they could have implemented it into the videos and included video bookmarks and/or a slider bar.

At the bottom of each page there is a tab of image thumbnails. Clicking on one makes a larger window appear over the content, showing you a larger version of the image with a short description. This works quite well.

There is one last issue I had with the Nerve Signaling software: the scrollbars. Specifically the scrollbars for the video footnotes (under the video). These are very small and it is unwieldy and difficult to grab a hold of the scroll marker.