Learning from home, things to consider
As the world has rapidly shifted to learning and working from home the need for online eLearning and digital training is more important than ever.
When developing eLearning there is a different set of challenges that come with learners taking training online, below are some of things you can do to help your eLearning overcomes these challenges and provide a good user experience for learners.
1. Be intuitive
One of the most important things when it comes to developing online training and eLearning is to make sure it is as intuitive as possible. As eLearning is taken online you don’t always have someone to ask for immediate help, therefore it is important to make sure your learners are easily able to work out what they need to do next to progress in their course. It is important to note that you also might have a variety of learners with different ages and technical skillsets, therefore you should make accommodations for as many leaners as possible and assume not everyone is going to have the same level of technical know how.
2. Keep file sizes small
Another thing you should keep in mind when designing and developing eLearning is your file sizes. As eLearning is taken from a variety of locations including at home and while on the go it is important to make sure that your course sizes do not get too large. As network connections can sometimes be slow or unstable learners who have poorer connections might have difficulty accessing your course. One way you can ensure your courses don’t get too large is to reduce the number of videos you use, a course with a lot of videos can make the file size get very big quickly and as a result may take a long time for learners to download and view.
3. Ensure its responsive
Making your eLearning content responsive is not a new concept, previously making your eLearning work for a variety of devices was a nice to have but now is essential. As your learners are taking training from home chances are your courses are being taken wide variety of devices including tablets, laptops and smartphones. This means that when designing your eLearning and digital training you need to consider how it would look on a mobile screen vs a tablet vs a wide screen laptop. Authoring tools can help with this as they have built in functionality to make content responsive, however you should always be mindful of how it would look on a variety of devices.
