5 Tips for eLearning Design

When it comes to building eLearning training programmes, there are many considerations. The content must be well-presented and targeted to your audience. The courses must contain the exact information the learners need at the specific point they’re at in their learning journey. In addition, you can’t forget about the importance of design.

Design isn’t just about font sizes and background colours, although these elements do play a part. It’s also about presenting the information in such a way that guides the learner along from start to finish. It’s about giving them clarity on what they need to know and helping them retain that information.

Here are five tips to help you build an effective eLearning programme for your organisation.

1) Use Visual Media To Engage Your Learners

Use quality, attractive images alongside text to break it up and convey important concepts. Sometimes, things can be explained more simply and clearly with the use of images versus text, though they are certainly complementary elements. The same can be said for videos.

Videos are highly engaging and can relay a lot of information in a short amount of time. The use of visual media will prove crucial to the success of your eLearning programme, as there’s a better chance your learners will stay engaged in the course material.

2) Use Plenty Of Whitespace & Keep It Simple

The most important aspect of any course is the content, not the design surrounding it. Distracting design elements can take away from the learning experience – this is where less is more! It’s worth combing through your course to identify any elements that distract from the learning process and remove them.

White space also plays an important role in eLearning design. The effective use of white space can help punctuate concepts and ideas, give learners more breathing room to transition from once concept to another, and help your students retain more of the information they consume. This would also suggest that breaking up content is a good idea. Instead of trying to cram everything into a single slide or page, try splitting disparate ideas into different sections.

3) Create An Attractive Theme

Yes, to an extent, beauty in design is a subjective thing. People certainly have preferences in terms of what they like and don’t like. But the use of bright colours in the wrong places, overly contrasting colours, colours that are too close together in shade, can all be problems depending on the context. Also, try to limit the use of colours within your theme – use a few rather than many.

4) Be Consistent

Changing colours, fonts, and other design elements arbitrarily can cause confusion among your learners. Each course you develop should have a consistent theme of its own, and shouldn’t stray too far from it. This lets your learners know they aren’t on a wild goose chase, trying to learn about one thing and then suddenly being led to another.

5) Study What Others Are Doing

Are you aware of any successful eLearning programmes out there? There’s a good chance you can learn a great deal from what they’ve managed to accomplish with their courses. Look at what’s out there and determine why these initiatives are so effective. Then, incorporate the best elements into your eLearning programme.

Final Thoughts on Effective eLearning Design

eLearning isn’t just content presented in digital form. It’s a meeting place of several disciplines – content creation and curation, design, curriculum development, and more! This means success in eLearning requires a holistic view of the course development process – not just a narrow view of what’s being shared with your students and employees. Today’s software makes it easy to develop attractive courses. Utilise the tools available to develop an beautiful design and bring your courses to life.