In eLearning Beauty Should Be Nonnegotiable
We all remember a favorite teacher who inspired us to learn, but what exactly made them so memorable? The answer lies in the way they presented their material. They were able to create an atmosphere that encouraged students to think critically and creatively. They were able to connect with the audience on a personal level and inspire them to want more.
It’s no surprise that you can use similar techniques to engage learners and increase their retention of your content. After all, the COVID-19 pandemic drove exponential growth in the eLearning industry. But it also made learners “more hungry” for content that is modern, beautiful, relevant, and engaging. This article discusses how eLearning designs can inspire better learning. It also provides some tips and strategies to help you create eLearning designs that will result in better learning experiences for your learners.
What Do We Mean By eLearning Design?
eLearning design is the process of planning how to present information to learners in a way that will be most effective for them. It has two main components: Instructional Design and visual design. Instructional Design is the process of deciding what content should be included, how it should be presented, and when it should be presented to learners. Visual design (or graphic design) refers to the actual look and feel of a course—its colors, fonts, layout, images, animation, and so on.
What Is Essential In eLearning Design?
Simply put, eLearning design is a way of creating learning experiences that are more effective and engaging. A good eLearning design should be made in such a way that learners pay attention and learn efficiently from start to finish. Effective eLearning designs should be built with elements that can ensure learners retain what they have learned for longer. In essence, there are ways of designing an online course so as to maximize the retention of information by your learners. It’s not just about teaching well; it’s also about making sure learners can remember the content after you’re done teaching them!
1. An Interactive Environment Is A Huge Part Of eLearning
It makes it more exciting and easier for learners to stay focused. An interactive design will also help make learning more fun, increasing retention. Adding interactivity allows your eLearning course to be so much more than a normal training course with videos. You can add self-assessments, quizzes, games, simulations, and animation into your courses [1].
2. Keep Your eLearning Simple But Interactive
eLearning is an excellent tool for disseminating knowledge to employees. However, if your eLearning course is too complicated and challenging, then it might not be beneficial. For example, if you have a 10-step process for completing a task and each step has 10 sub-steps, it will be hard for learners to remember all those steps and they may get lost along the way.
Instead, try keeping your eLearning simple but interactive so that learners can focus on learning the core concepts instead of worrying about remembering all the details of each step. Here are some ways to make sure your eLearning courses are easy to follow:
- Use short videos or animations instead of long ones. A short video will capture attention better than a longer one because it will keep the learners engaged throughout it if it’s engaging enough.
- Keep instructions in bullet points or numbered steps so they’re easier to follow along with and learners don’t feel like they need to remember each step’s details before moving on to the next one (which can be overwhelming).
- Keep it short and sweet. Complexity is a natural byproduct of features and lots of functions, but when it comes to eLearning, simplicity is your best bet.
Keep in mind that your main objective is to engage learners so that they can learn new information. The more interactive you make your course, the easier it will be for learners to do just that! Visual aids and audio/video content will go a long way toward helping your audience retain essential learning.
3. Choose The Right Colors, Font Size, And Background
A big part of your course’s aesthetic is how it looks, and luckily there are some principles that can help. People make judgments based on color and whether or not they can read the information on a screen. Still, eLearning allows for flexibility in design as long as you use colors that can be easily distinguished from one another.
Some font sizes are easy for learners to read (including enlarging your text if needed) and have an appealing background. Make sure the colors aren’t so bright that they hurt learner’s eyes after a time, be sure the text is legible, and try different options until you find what works best.
4. Be Consistent In Presentation, But Not In Style
Make sure you’re consistent in your visual presentation of your eLearning course, but this doesn’t mean you need to be tied down by uniformity. One way to do it is by creating a single design template that can be edited and expanded upon depending on how it fits into each course. This can save you from reinventing an entire look and feel each time.
Consistency is essential, but don’t become predictable or boring—your learners have come to expect some variation in course content over time, and changes in style will actually keep them engaged with your course content.
5. Add An Element Of Gamification Where Possible
If you’re offering your participants rewards or motivating them in some way, gamification is a good option. Gamification focuses on using games and game design techniques to help people engage in certain activities. After all, studies have shown that 95% of employees enjoy using gaming elements.
Ultimately, gamification is a great way to increase user engagement, but it’s also an excellent method for learning. If you’re looking for new ways to enhance your eLearning content, think about how gamification can help and how it will fit into your goals. A good place to start is with role-playing scenarios that guide users through real-world tasks and decisions based on likely situations they might encounter at work.
The Best eLearning Designs Must Be Able To Grab A Learner’s Attention
Because the process of creating an effective eLearning course can be so hard when you have to balance all the knowledge that needs to be transmitted with the desire to engage learners, it’s easy to forget about the importance of entertaining learners. Fortunately, game elements and images can help drive your eLearning process and make it more engaging for your users.
From graphic images and colors to catchy audio and text, there are plenty of ways an online course can be inspired by great artworks or images—just make sure not to steal anything! Matters of taste aside, the most effective eLearning designs must be able to grab, hold, and retain learners’ attention with ease. Prolonged interaction is the best approach to ensure that the lesson content is conveyed effectively in an environment where learners control how closely they will pay attention.
References:
[1] How Does Using Animation Help In eLearning?
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