A successful eLearning course does more than just inform, it inspires, excites, and motivates the learners to learn and engage with the content. With the rising demand for eLearning courses in every sector of life, almost every organization and institute is coming up with their own ideas for online training. And everyone wants their eLearning courses to be successful.
But as with all other methods of training, success is not always guaranteed. To successfully grab the attention of learners and keep them engaged with the online training is what a successful eLearning course does, and success will be guaranteed when learners engage and learn.
There are some specific characteristics that every eLearning course must have to achieve success. With so many poorly designed eLearning courses out there, any online training with a lightly mediocre design seems good to us. But what if we told you that there are some characteristics shared by all of the best eLearning courses out there, and you could join them simply by adopting these characteristics?
Hence, to level up your eLearning game, here are some characteristics of a successful eLearning course you should also incorporate into your content. Or if you are a learner, always look out for these characteristics in your respective online training.
9 Best Characteristics of an eLearning Course
1. Interactive Elements
The first and foremost thing that learners and students feel attracted to are the pleasing visuals. No one likes learning from a boring grey white page with loads and loads of text on it. Incorporating elements like graphics, tables, charts, images, illustrations, and diagrams will keep the learner attentive towards the course.
By “interactive elements,” we don’t just mean adding images, graphs, and illustrations. It means introducing engaging and challenging content with which learners keep interacting. For example, introducing audio quizzes and opting for gamified eLearning.
2. Pleasing Visuals & Aesthetics
The general aesthetic of your eLearning course should also be pleasing. It will be the first impression of your course on the learner. So, wisely choose it because visual designs are the image of your brand and business.
The visual aesthetic of your online training will also facilitate online learning, making it easy for the learners to grasp the concept.
3. Opt for Distraction-Free Designs
When we said the eLearning course should be interactive and have pleasing visuals, we didn’t mean to go overboard with this. Some people, just to make the content attractive, incorporate so many distractive designs that it makes it difficult for learners to really “grasp” the concept.
A successful eLearning course has just the right balance of interactive material and white space where nothing is needed to fill the space.
4. Clear Learning Objective
If you are designing an online training course, then there must be some learning objectives in your mind. However, the learning objectives should not be just in your mind. They should be reflected in your learning content. A successful eLearning course reflects a clear learning objective, which helps the learners stay on track towards the aim of the course.
These quizzes, assignments, group tasks, etc., are some of the activities that can help you measure the success of these learning objectives. There should be a clear pattern in your eLearning course that students can easily find. Because when they have a clear pattern of what they have learned, what they are currently learning, and what they will learn in the future, they will freely interact with the content.
5. Relevant & Targeted Content
Customers or learners stand at the same point when searching for the best product or online training. If they do not find what they are looking for or what you promised them, they will leave. Many eLearning professionals ask the content developers to use strategies to interact with their learners prior to the development of eLearning course content.
Knowing about the needs and demands of learners will help you create better and more targeted content. Also, learners will feel motivated to learn content that caters to their needs and provides them with what they really want to learn and practice.
Creating relevant content includes:
- Choosing the appropriate learning material and selecting the right medium to deliver the content.
- Taking into account the context of learners, e.g., Are the students seated at home or always on the move? Your content should be available to them easily and anytime, so they don’t feel bound to study at a specific time and place.
6. Use Inclusive Language
Another important characteristic of a successful eLearning course is the use of inclusive language. Online training experts say that the content of your training should directly contact the reader or learner. The learner shouldn’t feel like they are reading or learning. The content should be structured in a way to make the learner feel like the course content is speaking to them. Professional essay writers and content writers can help in this regard.
7. Focused, Simplified Content
As already mentioned, the eLearning course content should be relevant and targeted. Because if it is not focused, it will distract the learners from the actual objective of the training.
Also, once you succeed in preparing the focused content, the next step is to simplify it so that learners can easily understand it. An eLearning course with loads and loads of chapters and exercises is something no learner wants to engage with.
Your online training should clearly tell the learners what they should learn first, what they should learn second, and what comes last. With properly structured content and details of where to start and where to end, a learner will find it simple and easy to continue learning at their own pace.
8. Self-Reflection Opportunities
Another important characteristic that makes an eLearning course successful and superior to mediocre ones is the development of content that has “self-reflection opportunities.” Many studies and surveys have revealed that modern learners prefer to relate to information and gain immediate benefits from it.
An eLearning course that is learner-centered provides them with opportunities that relate to their personal information. For example, online training provides them with a task about the salesperson and which strategy they should approach to solve the relevant problem. Learners will be more engaged in this task if it is based on their own personal information, e.g. what problems they faced as a salesperson, etc.
This approach of stimulating self-reflective learning checks is used by large corporate organizations.
9. Accessibility
Easy and accessible support is something often overlooked by authors while preparing for the training content. Although most of the time, learners don’t need the support, it doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be there. A successful eLearning course is one that has easy and accessible support for its learners. Also, it has been proven by multiple types of research that eLearning courses where support and accessibility make learners feel more confident during their training. And, most importantly, accessibility is crucial people with impairments, disabilities or technological difficulties, eg. visual, hearing or cognitive impairments.
Final Words
Creating a successful eLearning course is more than just developing content and uploading it to an LMS and making it available online. To really call your online training successful, there is a need for an interactive yet distraction-free design, targeted and focused content, accessible for everyone, with pleasing visuals, and a positive, professional, yet friendly voice to keep the learners motivated and engaged with the training content. Follow our Twitter for more tips!
