Read time: 4 minutes
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Tell me, and I forget, teach me, and I remember. Involve me, and I learn.
This is a famous quote, and it is right.
Engaged learners are the dream of every instructional designer.
But how can you create engaging e-learning courses?
That’s a great question.
In this e-mail, we will review the steps you have to take to create engaging e-learning courses that wow your learners.
The most important rule for engaging e-learning is to make your e-learning course hyper-relevant for your learners.
How can you do this?
By focusing on the outcome of your e-learning for your learners. In other words, what must a learner do differently after following your course?
But how do you know what a learner needs to do differently at the end of your course?
1. Focus on the business goal.
Don’t understand how to do this?
Let’s look at an example.
You are invited to create training for a chemical plant to reduce absence. 15% of the plant personnel are out of work for long periods due to workplace accidents. Management has set a goal to get absence down 10% by the end of 2023.
Here’s your company goal: absence due to accidents must be down 10% by the end of 2023.
Now it’s not about what people need to know to ensure the company goal is met but what people need to do. You need to discover what people need to do and see why they are not doing it.
Once you know this, you can move on to step 2.
2. Come up with a concept for your e-learning course
To come up with a concept for your e-learning course.
What is a concept I hear you ask?
A concept is the story, theme and idea behind your e-learning course.
A few examples for our course about safety in the chemical plant
You can create a game called ‘Find the hazard’ where a learner follows a worker in the factory. There are different types of hazards. the sooner the learner spots a hazard the more points he gets.
You can also create a course with scenarios where you must guide a worker safely throughout his day by making decisions before situations.
You can come up with a lot of examples like that. In which you have to see what best suits the learner and the business goal.
3. Attention-grabbing content
If you have a business goal and you come up with a concept for your e-learning, it’s time for the content of your e-learning.
Why content and not Visual design?
Content precedes design. Design in the absence of content is not design. It’s decoration.
You have to gather the information within the organisation that you need and transform this into an attention-grabbing script to have the learner’s attention right from slide 1.
An active writing style alone is not enough to grab the learner’s attention.
You have to try harder.
So study the best storytelling techniques, learn the tips and tricks of marketing copywriters and apply them in your e-learning.
4. Visual design
The last step for an engaging e-learning course is visual design. With the design of your e-learning course, you can set the tone for a mood for your learner.
But it also ensures aesthetic appeal and usability, making your course better with suitable images, typography, space, layout and colours.
You need all four components to create engaging e-learning in the right proportion. The upcoming week I will discuss the various components in more detail.
