User Experience Design for E-learning
Online learning is a broad term that describes the use of digital media to provide some form of education or training. Online learning developers are responsible for using the tools available to them to create easy-to-use experiences.
Relevance before beauty
A good user experience designer cares for more than the physical look of their projects. User research plays an important role in solution development. As a learning or content developer, you concern yourself heavily with how easy your end-user will use your material. Knowing your learner will determine the effectiveness of your experience.
For example, in an environment where compliance is the preferred outcome, trainees should be exposed to the content they are required to know in a structured format that doesn’t leave them trying to fill in the blanks. Videos that span hours are difficult to navigate when looking back for specific pieces of information. Instead, content should be well indexed and searchable.
(retrieved from this Weflow forum: https://discourse.webflow.com/t/text-spilling-off-screen-cant-figure-out-why/176954)
Consider this page that you’re reading right now. If you’re on your phone, how often do you swipe to move on to the next paragraph? Would this work just as well on your laptop? The appropriate amount of content per screen depends heavily on the size of the screen. On mobile devices, keep your audience engaged by limiting interactions to only what is essential. Desktop screens afford more flexibility in interactions, but your audience will need to be guided through content effectively.
What do your users know?
Before running into your solution, your users have lived through more than you can possibly empathise with. They will all have unique interpretations of how things should work. While you, as a professional, have standards to align to – remember to design an interface that will make sense to your audience.
Are you designing within a system that your users have been using for years? Or are you introducing a completely new instance? If the latter is the case, then buttons, links, scrolling, clicking, etc., should all function in ways that will be familiar. Consider common apps, websites and real-world user experience design when introducing people to spaces they have never seen before.
Who is your stuff supposed to work for?
Most importantly, remember you are designing for humans (most likely). We’re not too complicated. We like to click things more than we like to read. And we especially like it when we know what we’re supposed to click on. The less your users have to think, the easier it will be to keep them engaged, learning and to enjoying it as they go.