10 Tips For eLearning Course Design
To create an eLearning course that helps learners retain the information they’re given, you need to know how memory works, how emotions affect learning, and what mistakes to avoid when designing your eLearning course.
If you aren’t yet familiar with creating an effective eLearning course, here are some top 10 tips to help you with your design and development process.
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Tips for effective eLearning course design
Put learning objectives first.
First and foremost, your course should have a learning objective. This is a high-level statement that defines what students will be able to do once they’ve completed your elearning course.
The result of any eLearning program should be an increase in employees’ productivity and expertise, for example, or a better understanding of company standards and how to uphold them.
It doesn’t matter if you choose to frame it as delivering X amount of value per participant or not; as long as you know what learning outcome you want from your eLearning course, it will make everything else easier to figure out.
Know your target audience for your eLearning course
You must be clear about your target audience to create the eLearning content. Without knowing who your target audience is, you will not be able to know what they need and the pain points they are facing.
Your eLearning content must then meet the need of your target audience and help them solve their issues effectively. If you fail to do so, you might waste a lot of time and resources without achieving any positive results.
Use catchy headlines and lead in sentences to grab the reader’s attention
It’s important to grab the reader’s attention and have them reading on. Use catchy headlines and lead-in sentences that get the reader wanting to learn more.
Having these short blurbs at the beginning of your elearning course helps orient the learner into what they can expect from the eLearning content, giving a peek into how much they will be elearning and what they can gain at the end of it all.
Add in visuals and interactive elements to make your eLearning course engaging.
Adding visuals and interactive elements to make your eLearning course engaging is something that all good eLearning designers incorporate into their projects. These days, learners want to be engaged as quickly as possible.
Because of that, you need to create a seamless experience for them from start to finish.
You have to grab their attention immediately with your first slide and keep them engaged throughout your elearning course.
Good elearning design is key here because it can help engage even a passive learner and boost completion rates.
Be sure to add some high-quality images or videos so they feel more like they are watching TV than sitting in front of a computer screen, or use bright colors and bold fonts to feel like they are reading an interesting book instead of studying for school or work.
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Design your eLearning course for mobile devices
You are probably aware that eLearning and mobile devices go hand-in-hand, but did you know that creating a course for a mobile device is different than designing for a standard computer screen?
Your eLearning course will feel more like a game when it’s designed with mobile devices in mind. To make your course more engaging, design your learning content specifically for mobile use.
Instead of scrolling in your elearning course, have learners swipe through content or provide them with an option to view images and elearning videos as they progress in their training.
Keep your eLearning course simple.
One of your most important goals as an eLearning course designer is to keep your eLearning simple. Keeping things simple doesn’t just mean keeping things clear and straightforward.
It also means making it short: shorter elearning courses are easier to understand, can engage learners better, and don’t put learners off with a bunch of content they feel like they have to trudge through.
If you have time for something new in your elearning course, ask yourself if it will add value to your learners or make it more complicated for them.
Adding complexity should be done with caution; most importantly, keep things short!
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Use Effective Communication Tools in your eLearning course to keep learners engaged.
You can easily lose learners by using boring and outdated learning techniques.
Use:
Videos,
Graphics,
Animations,
And other fun tools to keep their attention.
Remember, some of your elearners will not have a background in educational technology or modern methods of communication; for those people, you will need to cater to an older generation who is used to reading text and listening to audio files.
It’s also a good idea to ensure that everything you produce is easy to use and accessible on different devices like smartphones and tablets so that it works for everyone at all times.
Capture learners’ attention by providing realistic context
While you may think learners jump at any opportunity to learn, that's not always true. For eLearning to be successful, you must be able to capture their attention by providing realistic context.
This helps them see how what they are learning can be applied in real life—and perhaps also benefit them personally.
By making your context relatable, they will feel as if they are actually there and listening intently to every word of your elearning course.
Students are likely to tune out if something doesn't make sense right away or seems particularly boring.
Show learners how you expect them to apply the eLearning course content in their environments.
If you want your learners to gain meaningful, tangible knowledge from the eLearning courses you’ve designed, you have to give them a reason to apply that content. After all, information is only useful if it’s applied.
There are many ways you can show learners how they can use the eLearning content in their environments.
One way is by adding interactions to your elearning course design; for example, asking learners for their opinions about an idea or concept may help them remember and learn it more thoroughly than simply telling them about it.
Another option is to include different media in your eLearning course, such as work samples, interviews with subject matter experts, or videos demonstrating how a task is performed outside of the eLearning context.
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Use instructional design methodologies in your workflow
Many eLearning designers get comfortable with one method for designing their eLearning courses. However, when designing successful eLearning courses, designers need to use different methodologies to accommodate their audience.
In some cases, instructional design methodologies will benefit your course more than others; in some cases, it may be better to just wing it without thinking too much about best practices.
That said, several techniques work across all subjects and themes; these instructional design methodologies should be part of your workflow when designing eLearning courses.
Keep your eLearning courses short and relevant
your audience’s tolerance and needs should determine eLearning course length, but you’ll also want to remember that a user’s attention span can be difficult to predict.
You’re better off going shorter than longer unless your goal is massive training. Keep eLearning short and relevant to prevent boredom. Long courses will likely drive learners away before they finish.
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Don’t over-design your eLearning course.
Keeping your eLearning course design simple is important for many reasons. Here are just a few: If you over-design, it is likely that your learners will be overwhelmed and won’t learn anything.
Additionally, if you over-design your eLearning course, your learners might not be able to recreate what they learned on their own later on, and also, if you over-design your eLearning course, it’s unlikely that any learning experts will find it very useful. Keep things simple and focus on clarity first.
Get feedback from your audience using formative evaluation
Using a concept called formative evaluation to get feedback while they are still engaged with the content, you can get the necessary information to help improve your course before it has even been published.
One of the easiest ways to do that is by including an evaluation form for learners to fill out as they go through your eLearning content. This allows them to give you honest feedback and helps you build a better learning experience for future learners.
Make Sure You Have A Marketing Plan In Place for your eLearning course.
Marketing your eLearning course is more than just promoting it to your social media followers or sending out an email blast.
Marketing involves a solid action plan, such as building brand awareness and developing relationships with prospective customers.
To do so, develop a sound marketing strategy that addresses your target audience's specific wants and needs.
Also, make sure to have a website ready for prospective clients. A solid website should include all relevant information about your eLearning course, including pricing and delivery format (desktop-only or mobile-friendly).
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Elearning offers advantages that make it an attractive form of training for companies. But you must use these tips when creating an eLearning course to ensure it provides maximum value and benefits.
Making eLearning easy to use is one of your top priorities, but you need to make sure you are also keeping other important factors in mind - such as cost, time constraints, and quality of content.
You need to be sure that you're choosing an engaging and user-friendly format if you want users to view your elearning course favorably! If your courses are difficult or cumbersome to navigate, then people will jump at an opportunity not to take them.
If you need a team of professionals to help create high-quality and engaging eLearning courses for you, then get in touch with us today at TheLearning LAB.