Text in eLearning
When creating your eLearning course text is most likely one of the main things you will use to teach your learners about a subject, however, there are some important things you should consider when adding text to your slides.
1. Colours
When adding text to your eLearning course you want to make sure that the colours you choose for your text is easy for learners to read. Having colours that clash or contrast with one another can make it difficult for your learners to read the text and can result in a bad user experience. For example, if you have red text on a yellow background this can clash and can be hard for learners to read due to the strong differences in colour, similarly if you have grey text on a dark background this can also make it difficult for learners to read the words that are on screen due to the colours being too similar.
2. Size
Another important thing to consider is the font size you are using in your course. When adding text to your course try to use a font size that will not be too big or too small for learners to read, typically the ideal size for font is around sizes 11-18. If you have text that is too small this can be difficult for learners to read due to its small size, likewise if you have font that is too big this can make the page look crowded and again may not be easy for learners to read.
3. Walls of Text
When creating your course, it can be tempting to use a lot of text as it is often the easiest and quickest way to explain a concept to your learners, this is particularly true if you have a complex subject in which you need to provide the learner with a lot of information. The downside of using a lot of text though is that the course can easily become static and can make the learning experience less interesting for learners. If you find that you have a lot of text, see if you can either reduce it using other media such as audio, images or videos or try to split up into smaller bite sized chunks so they can be used in activities such as click-and-reveal activities or in knowledge checks.
