The Learning at Large Podcast

Elearning best practice: The ultimate design guide

Inês Graça — Thu, 08 Jun 2023 08:46:13 +0000

Introduction

With 86% of training now taking place either completely or partly online, it’s clear that digital is a key element of every successful L&D strategy. Faced with widening skill gaps, most businesses are looking to digital learning to help them respond. But this increase in demand for online learning has seen 43% of L&D professionals struggling to respond at speed, while maintaining quality. And there’s no point delivering lots of training solutions quickly, if they’re not effective.

So, how do you design engaging elearning that meets end users’ needs and delivers real business impact?

We’ve surveyed learners, gained insight from L&D professionals and reviewed the latest industry research to discover what makes engaging elearning experiences that deliver impact. This guide brings together our findings and provides elearning best practices, practical tips and lots of examples.

So, whether you call yourself a learning designer or performance consultant, an accidental instructional designer or a subject-expert, you’ll find what you need to design effective online learning solutions.

What is elearning best practice?

The modern learner has around 20 minutes a week for learning at work (Bersin & Forbes). That’s a mere 1% of their working week. This might not even be 20 minutes in one go or one place. So, a really crucial aspect of what makes effective elearning is that it respects its audience and makes good use of this time. After all, elearning effectiveness is measured on whether it makes a difference to a person’s behavior or performance habits. It needs to drive change!

Effective elearning design takes into account modern learner trends and dives into the needs and habits of its end users. Long haul, click-through, interactive elearning? No thanks. Elearning effectiveness comes from solutions that are engaging, relevant and personalized.

How frequently are employees engaging with elearning courses?

What do you know about modern learner needs?

When we talk about learning we’re really talking about changing people’s behaviors and habits. To be successful, you need to get under the skin of your audience.

What will really help them perform better?
What will engage them?
And what challenges and blockers do they face?

“Think about how you can advocate for your learners. Ask why this is useful? What’s the purpose we serve…I really think that we have an opportunity to influence in a broader way…and from a learner centric perspective.”

Stella Lee, Founder, Paradox Learning, Leading with purpose through thoughtful L&D

Of course, every organization is different. So, it’s vital you always research your end users as part of your elearning development process. To boost your own findings, however, we have pulled together key insights from our own research with modern learners – otherwise known as employees in global organizations.

Read on for the headlines.

3 key insights on the modern learning experience

Insight #1: Time is squeezed

The modern learner has 3 hours or less a month set aside for learning at work. That’s a mere 1-2% of a full-time worker’s hours. This might not even be 20 minutes in one go or one place. In this time-pressured environment, it’s clear that digital learning offers a far more flexible solution than traditional classroom learning. However, whether it’s online or in person, time away from work needs to be time well spent. So, it’s crucial that any elearning respects your people’s time.

Insight #2: Learning can misalign

Making good use of your people’s time ultimately means delivering training that meets their learning needs. Often quicker to develop than face-to-face training, digital learning can help organizations and individuals keep up with new and evolving skill requirements. However, around a third of employees feel that their digital learning does not fully align with their company’s goals. And if elearning isn’t covering the skills and knowledge employees need, then it’s wasting their time.

Insight #3: Room for improvement

Covering the right skills is the minimal viable product. Making the most of people’s time means maximizing the impact of any training. But with more than 50% of elearning in large organizations rated as fair to poor, there’s definitely room for improvement. So, we asked learners to give us their thoughts on what good and bad elearning looks like to them. The answer was clear. Long, passive, click-through elearning? No thanks. People want focused, active and relevant digital learning that they can easily access and apply in their work.

How to design a successful elearning course

So, how do you take these learner insights and use them to deliver more successful people-centered training that tackles your business’ skill gaps? What does a good elearning course look like?

Here are 4 key principles for impactful digital learning

1. Make it relevant

Solutions that overtly meet the
specific performance needs of individuals
in their context

Taking a one-size-fits-all or a
“top down” approach
to learning

62% of learners said relevant content was the most important factor when it came to elearning. If something is really useful it gives people intrinsic motivation to use it.

Mundane, generic content is easily spotted by learners, and they are then likely to switch off. The average person gives learning content around 7 seconds to decide if a page is for them or not, and will leave if their needs aren’t met.

“Acquiring knowledge must have an element of purpose…You’re going to get the information that matters to you right now. Because you’re faced with a situation where having the knowledge becomes essential.”

Lila Warren, Global Head of Retail Academy, Pret a Manger
Harnessing curiosity to empower learners

How do you achieve this?

Start with clear learning objectives and user profiles:

It goes without saying that unless you know what problem you’re trying to fix, why it exists and what the audience needs, your elearning project is unlikely to be effective.

Speak to them:

It goes without saying that unless you know what problem you’re trying to fix, why it exists and what the audience needs, your elearning project is unlikely to be effective.

Include examples:

To make sure you design elearning that’s overtly relevant to your audience, provide context. Don’t just tell learners what to do, include real life examples of how these skills are applied in their day-to-day work. This might require different versions of content, or the use of personalization tools to help filter out what’s relevant to that audience member.

Provide role or skill specific content:

Try a simple “role filter” at the beginning of your learning content, and then use dynamic menus or branching to serve up the topics or pages that apply to that role. If you’re providing training on a specific skill, ask your learners what context they need to apply the skill. Armed with their answers, you can provide the specific examples or application exercises they need.

Localize your content:

Translation can really help engage global audiences, but localization can go further. This is where someone from that location helps edit the written and visual content to bring it in line with local “norms” and contexts.

“Some training modules do not relate to the ever-changing nature of my work.
I must learn things that don’t relate to my department, which is time-consuming and inefficient.”

– Anonymous employee feedback

2. Get truly interactive

Content and experiences that connect with audiences and motivate them to do something

Online manuals, technical jargon, passive experiences, indirect communications, click-through content

20% of learners said they switched off when elearning lacked interactivity. But they’re clear that interactivity isn’t just about clicking on the screen. It’s about engaging them through active participation and connection using a variety of approaches, including visual and multimedia content.

“[Effective learning] drives action, opportunity to practice and creates a series. There’s a more-ish effect. So, I’ve had a little taste and I want a bit more. I can fall into the rabbit hole, or I can grab what I’ve got and move on.”

David Hepworth, Learning & Talent – Design and Technology Lead, Aviva
Embedding democratized learning creation at Aviva

How do you achieve this?

Create participation:

Active learning and practice are the building blocks of effective or “sticky” learning. Encourage action and participation inside and outside your elearning. Reflecting, trying, practising, being stretched, failing, discussing, comparing (in person or online via social polling) – this kind of interactivity engages by involvement.

Tell stories:

Great digital storytelling and immersive learning experiences connect hearts as well as heads. It creates emotional connection which is vital for effective learning to take place.

Make endings the beginning:

Embed links to relevant next steps to create a continuous learning experience. For example, discussion forums, further learning, practice tasks, and on-the-job guides.

“Digital learning keeps my attention when it stays active and keeps me focused on the task.”

– Anonymous employee feedback

3. Keep it concise

Uses people’s time wisely, makes learning no longer than it needs to be

A splatter gun of disconnected pieces; just “info” without any support

17% of learners reported improved learner engagement when elearning was concise, easy to understand, and well-organized. Bite-sized, digestible digital learning can fit around schedules, so it’s no wonder it’s popular with busy employees.

But effective elearning courses aren’t just short for the sake of it. For elearning best method, go for solutions that deliver real value and make good use of learners’ time – whether that’s in 2 minutes, 10 minutes or longer.

“Content does not become more useful simply by virtue of breaking it into smaller pieces. To create useful content, we would actually have to talk to the people we are creating it for.”

Nick Shackleton-Jones, CEO and Founder of Shackleton Consulting
Stop going through the motions and start delivering learning impact

How do you achieve this?

Less is always more:

Reading on screen is hard work, and there’s only so much detail someone can take in at a time. Say what you need to say in the shortest way possible.

Use a direct, active voice:

Use the “you” word and focus on what people need to do (e.g., “here are three things you can do in this situation,” not “when in this situation, employees should…” Imagine the audience is in the room and say what you want to say out loud, then write it.

Make it scannable:

Use clear headers, subheadings, emboldened sentences, bullets and more to help make the copy more scannable and digestible.

Get visual:

An image is worth a thousand words. From diagrams to photographs, the right visuals can increase your impact. They help communicate your key concepts quickly, engage your learners and can even get an emotional response.

Spaced repetition of practice:

Rather than asking learners to sit through a two hour-long course which they’ll likely forget in a few weeks’ time, break learning into short chunks that have purpose. This allows you to build up learner competence and confidence incrementally across a period of time through spaced repetition.

“For me, it is interactive rather than simply reading lots of text, as this won’t keep my attention.”

– Anonymous employee feedback

3. Ensure it’s easy to access

Content that’s easy to find and use when people want it, wherever they are

Content that’s hidden in long courses, behind complex menus or systems, with obscure names

22% of learners said learning engagement increased when it was easy to access at the point of need. The vast majority of workplace learners prefer learning on the job.

This means learning through doing, trying, observing and discussing. But it also means that any additional learning – e.g., answers to questions someone might have about a process or what tactics to use – should be easily accessible in those moments of need. Effective elearning is sympathetic to this, and doesn’t force lengthy, hard-to-use courses on people. Rather, it provides short form, responsive content.

“L&D is not responsible for learning. Learning happens in someone’s brain. Our job is to provide the best conditions …That doesn’t mean, we’re going to give you courses. It means that we’re going to understand what your problems are, and then provide you tools. And that may be a course, but it could be a simple checklist.”

Zsolt Olah, Senior Learning Technologist, Amazon
Rethinking learner engagement to deliver real impact

How do you achieve this?

Make it micro-learning:

Shorter chunks of elearning give busy users the option to use it in a moment of need, on their commute and on smaller screens. This article and video explains more about how to create effective microlearning.

Give choices:

Design your solution in a way that supports busy employees to make choices that are right for them. Do they need the 5 minute overview or the 15 minute deep dive? Do they want the activities they can do for themselves, or the case study exercise to do in a group?

Enable on-the-job learning:

Job aids, such as checklists, resources and how-to videos, are great for encouraging action, collaboration and discussion in the moment. Make sure they can be easily accessed on the systems people use as part of their day-to-day work, such as the intranet, Slack or Teams.

“For me, it is interactive rather than simply reading lots of text, as this won’t keep my attention.”

– Anonymous employee feedback

Get certified

How to design engaging elearning [Course]

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5 best practice approaches for elearning design to inspire you

Online learning materials can take many forms, from on-the-job performance support resources and diagnostic surveys through to microlearning skills training and immersive simulations.

Here are a few highlights from our best elearning examples to provide some immediate elearning inspiration.

1. Microlearning and on-the-job resources

There’s been a big shift from courses to resources in the last ten or so years. This microlearning approach can take various different shapes – from standalone job aids to multiple resources that are part of a cohesive learning journey or campaign. Here are two examples:

On-the-job resources

Access to microlearning resources which employees can use at the point of need has an immediate impact on performance.

This product knowledge example supports people on the shop floor. It’s short and focused. Learners can use it as and when needed – to explore the product catalog or check a quick detail while with a customer.

Structured microlearning journeys

This quick guide example is designed to be part of an onboarding campaign for new starters. It uses an in-page progress menu to help learners orient themselves in the elearning course. The guide ends with real world actions to take on the shop floor during their first shift.

Microlearning is a great approach for:

Audiences that have a lot to remember and are likely to need reminders ‘in the moment’.

Theoretical content that needs to be made practical; think new procedures or change management. Or factual content that learners might need refreshers on; think product or systems training.

Performance support resources.

Spaced practice – think Duolingo, where competence is built through practice over time.

Holistic approaches to learning, where the same microlearning nugget may support multiple performance outcomes and can be reused in different contexts and learning journeys.

Speedy elearning development – as the same template can often be reused.

Microlearning design top tips

Be the answer to a specific problem:

Google is so popular because it helps you find just what you’re looking for. Microlearning needs to do the same. But your answer can be better, as it can reflect your workplace and audience context. Make each bite-sized piece specific, targeted and concise.

Create clusters:

Avoid producing microlearning nuggets blindly. Know how each topic fits into overarching performance goals and connects with other content. Is it a performance support resource, part of an incremental skill-building program, or both?

Create spaced practice:

Providing learners with regular challenges that enable them to practice applying skills in slightly new situations helps grow competence and memory more than other approaches. String together microlearning challenges/learning into learning journeys that get harder or easier depending on performance.

Keep track:

Consider allocating scores, badges, or some kind of reward to learners when they complete a challenge. Could the challenges be at different levels? Can you mark milestones for when X amount has been achieved?

Remember your learning design principles:

Just because you’re producing something short doesn’t mean it should be dry or just “info.” Stories, examples, demos, challenges, expert tips and job aides should all be considered.

2. Gamification

Game-like learning taps into a fundamental aspect of human behavior: motivation. Creating a sense of play and competition in your corporate elearning is great for engagement – and easy to achieve through gamification.

Gamified scenarios

Using levels, points and badges are classic devices to reward and motivate.

This game-like quiz example is made up of three rounds on data protection. Each round offers the chance to win points and badges. Learners are incentivized to apply their knowledge correctly, making the content more likely to stick in the learner’s mind when handling a real situation.

Gamification is a great approach for:

A cohort or community of learners who are motivated by competition and will make the most of the benchmarking, competition and social elements.

Content that involves high pressure scenarios – gamification is great for replicating this sense of pressure – or less serious topics that you can have a bit of fun with.

Simulation-based learning when you can offer up scores in different areas – e.g., management training where choices may impact on the team’s mental health, business efficiency, innovation, productivity, quarterly targets and more.

Longer-term programs and learning campaigns, where scores and rewards are threaded throughout.

Gamification in elearning: design top tips

Start small, but don’t cut corners:

Rather than going all-in on a high-profile gamification project, target a particular business area, audience or program and experiment with different approaches. Don’t just add points to a task or tack a leaderboard onto an end-of-course quiz. The game mechanics have to serve a purpose beyond “making it fun.”

Prioritize the learning, not the game:

Points and competition only deliver value if they’re tied to behaviors and performance. Always get the learning objectives straight first and design game mechanics to be in service of those.

Develop a hierarchy of points:

Whereby points are easily earned (maybe for completing a profile or sharing the course) and accumulate quickly, but badges are more meaningful, offered only in return for doing something that demonstrates new knowledge, competence or skills.

Be clear on criteria and progression:

Keep people engaged and motivated. What tasks earn points? What do points mean? Perhaps they translate into badges or unlock new content. What’s the criteria for reaching the next level or reward?

Ramp up the challenge gradually:

Learners need frequent, easy achievements to begin with. Once they’ve gotten to grips with things and seen that effort reaps reward, they’re primed and ready for a bigger challenge.

Don’t disregard individual competition:

It isn’t always feasible or appropriate to pit learners against learners on public leaderboards – but that doesn’t mean you can’t successfully gamify your content. Social polling in elearning lets an individual see how they compare to others, but anonymously. Or, take FitBit: it has the community aspect, but plenty of people use it without that. Intrinsic rewards may count for more than social (extrinsic) achievements.

3. Interactive multimedia and content

Interactivity is all about driving engagement. Rather than simply reading text or watching a video, you need to get people reflecting on what they’ve seen or putting what they’ve learnt into practice. There isn’t one right way to deliver content. But by using a well-chosen and arranged combination of content and interactions you can produce learning with impact.

Digital storytelling

Storytelling is an incredibly powerful force for learning and memory. It has been part of what humans do since the beginning of time. When done right, it has the ability to strike up emotions and connect with users – which are both crucial to engaging their hearts as well as their minds.

This storytelling for learning example shows how storytelling doesn’t always need audio or video to work. It’s a subtly interactive story that asks users to make some choices for themselves partway through. Great for the start of a wider performance change campaign.

Storytelling in elearning is a good approach for:

Big change programs, where emotional connection is critical to getting people onboard.

Tasks that involve multiple colleagues working together and require understanding different perspectives to be successful.

Showing what good (and not so good) looks like! And gray areas or context around a topic.

Higher risk situations where people need to understand the serious impact of not making the right choices.

Storytelling design top tips

Find the human side of your content:

Whether it’s the story of an overstretched parent whose relationship with his children improved when he made some changes to his day (time management training), or the trials of a young manager who felt overlooked and shut down by her superiors (diversity and inclusion training), people and their experiences will make your content compelling

Show, don’t tell:

When you’ve uncovered the emotion, let it take centerstage in your story, and trust your learners to work out what’s going on. Write dialogue rather than learning points, focus on feelings, and describe senses rather than stating facts.

Provide multiple perspectives:

Our natural curiosity doesn’t just apply to one character in a story. Often, we’re intrigued by how our opinion differs from our others.

Not sure why stories and learning are a winning combination?

Check out these ideas and top tips for success in storytelling in elearning and
this immersive storytelling article for inspiration.

Scenario-based video learning

Scenario based learning puts users in the driver’s seat and is a great way of increasing their engagement with a digital learning experience. “Choose your own adventure”-style scenarios like the examples below immerse users in a story and allow them to make decisions that control the outcome. This approach allows users to learn through experiencing consequences rather than being informed of them. In particular, it enables people to learn from (safely) making mistakes.

This video branching scenario, based around mental health issues, asks users to make a call on what they think is going on and what action someone should take. The personalized results at the end analyze the approach the user took, compares it with others’, and sets out how other options would have played out.

Video in elearning is a good approach for:

Interviews with experts, leaders and peers.

Promotional pieces to hook audiences into a learning campaign, for example.

Drama-based learning experiences, where emotional connection and reflection are key.

Branching scenarios where characters “react’” to learners’ choices.

Shareable content – standalone videos do well on social platforms.

Demonstrations of good elearning, and not-so-good elearning!

Video-based elearning design top tips

Don’t splash the cash unless you really need to:

Check if the perfect video already exists on YouTube or other platforms, and embed it.

Make it personal:

Capture personal stories when interviewing people, not corporate messaging. Do a few takes, each time helping your subject drill down to the essence of their story.

Experiment with selfie videos:

Taken simply on a smartphone, and have people upload them for you to use within or to complement your elearning.

Check out more advice in this micro guide to using
audio and video in elearning.

Try the guide Book a demo

Reflective learning

Getting people to reflect on their current capabilities is critical to improving their performance. Afterall, you need to know what you want to improve before you can improve it.

This guided self reflection encourages learners to stop, reflect and then commit to actions they’ll take forward to manage their team more effectively. Including social polling appeals to people’s natural curiosity as they can compare their own responses to those of their peers.

Reflective learning is a good approach for:

An audience with a varied level of skill, experience and confidence that needs to be directed to the key learning they need to focus on.

Motivating people to engage with your learning. Learner reflection offers the opportunity to challenge assumptions, reassure the less confident and highlight how your digital learning will meet someone’s unique learning needs.

Getting people to really engage with scenarios and examples by reviewing and rating what they’ve seen.

Reflective learning design top tips

Start with a chance to reflect:

Asking your learners to reflect on their current experiences is a great way to engage people at the beginning of your learning experience.

Add reflection points throughout:

Keep learners reflecting throughout the course. This might be rating an example, considering how they would apply a process or identifying what they want to do next.

Leverage FOMO:

Use social polling so learners can see how they compare to their peers. Fear of missing out on being part of the gang will help motivate people to change their behavior.

4. Accessible and inclusive content

Everyone should be able to have a great learning experience. With employees accessing elearning anytime, anywhere, and on any device, delivering quality responsive elearning on smaller screens is critical. And if you want to ensure your digital learning is truly inclusive, it means making sure you consider accessibility and responsive design from the start.

Mobile learning

This quick briefing example shows how a short interactive resource could be used for just-in-time support. The simple structure (What, Why, How and What’s next) can be quickly scanned through on any device. So people can access the information they’re after in the moment of need.

Mobile learning is a good approach for:

Quick glance microlearning (short, 2-3 minute modules).

Performance support resources.

Video content, including interactive video.

Simple interactions, such as polls.

Short quizzes.

Mobile learning design top tips

Embrace the scroll:

Design your user interface so it’s a natural fit with the device and mimics how people explore other online content. Long pages and fewer clicks are best.

Make it bite-sized:

Design for the amount of time your users are likely to stay on their phone. Our data, based on millions of learners, shows the average session time on mobiles is 10 minutes.

Reduce the number of clicks:

Focus on one action at a time, removing unnecessary screens or clicks.

Make it thumb-friendly:

Ensure content can be easily accessed with thumbs, and buttons and links are big enough and spaced out.

Make it easy to scan:

The fast-scroll is inevitable, so make sure your key points will stand out. Use clear headers, numbered points and icons to grab attention.

Declutter:

Remove any images or sections that won’t work on smaller screens or just clutter up the experience.

This article contains the low-down on mobile learning design best practices.

Read the article Book a demo

Accessible elearning design top tips

Think about assistive tech from the start:

Make your content compatible with assistive technologies (e.g., screen readers) by adding captions, providing a transcript and choosing your language wisely.

Think about readability:

Color contrast is key to readability of text. Ensure that contrast is high, either by using very different tones or very different colors. Consider boosting your text size too, to improve legibility.

Consider your interactions:

Certain interaction types are not fully-accessible for all learners. For instance, some drag and drop and sortable activities rely on a learner using (and being adept with) a mouse, which will exclude anyone using keyboard navigation.

5. Assessments, quizzes and questions

Assessments that test learners’ understanding are often critical, especially where compliance is concerned. But don’t just save these for the end of your course assessment. Start with a question to find out what they already know. Challenge their preconceptions. Get them to reflect on how they approach things. Use questions to pace the learning. Follow up after you’ve provided key content to check their knowledge.

Upfront diagnostics

This personalized toolkit example asks targeted multiple-choice questions to users about their current habits and struggles when delegating work. It then serves up a tailored report based on how they answered to help them see where they need to improve. It makes effective use of learners’ time by honing in on real gaps and providing targeted guidance on the next things they need to do.

Of course, this sophisticated diagnostic isn’t the only way to help learners find content that’s relevant. Smart menus that include reflective questions and give clear choices allow people to tailor their learning experience.

Robust assessments with question pools

In this compliance test, question pools are used to create a robust assessment. Question pools mean that when a learner retakes the test, they’re unlikely to see the same questions again. This helps ensure learners truly understand the content – they won’t be able to simply choose a different answer on a second attempt.

It also makes it harder for learners to share answers as it is unlikely their colleagues will have been posed the same set of questions.

Assessments are a good learning approach for:

Business critical content that needs to be tested, such as compliance rules and regulation

Audiences who need to prove a thorough understanding of a subject before starting a particular task.

Assessment and quizzes design top tips

Write the questions before the content:

This may seem counter-intuitive, but by writing solid questions that test the learning objectives and then developing content to support those questions, your content will be leaner and tighter.

Test what you want people to do, not what you think they should know:

Always try and put the question into a workplace context. For example, give the learner a scenario and ask which of the answer options would resolve it, or ask, “Here are the opinions of four colleagues. Whose would you follow to resolve this situation?”.

Get people thinking with your incorrect options:

A good distractor should seem like a plausible option to someone who doesn’t know the learning content, but should be clearly wrong to someone who does. It shouldn’t, however, be incorrect on a vague technicality – especially if that technicality isn’t specifically covered in the course material.

5C framework for effective elearning

Although every organization and project is different, certain steps are fundamental to the success of all digital learning. We’ve drawn on the experience of hundreds of learning teams and boiled these down to five key stages.

Capture – start with a clear plan:
Understand the problem, so you can shape your solution.

Conceptualize – lead with a prototype:
Turn what you know about your audience’s needs into a vision for effective and engaging learning.

Create – build with confidence:
Start building in your authoring platform with a streamlined, efficient development process.

Cultivate – improve and refine:
Use data to improve projects and inform future strategy.

Commercialize – deliver better ROI: Making sure your product works for your busin

Top tip: Embarking on a new process can be daunting. Start small by trying out the process on one project. Focus on the first three Cs (Conceptualize, Create, Cultivate). Decide on what works for you, your colleagues and organizations.

Find out more and access our free 5C Framework guide to walk you through each step of the process.

Collaborative ways of working

Of course, even the most robust process will fail if it’s not supported by effective ways of working.

Developing impactful training can’t be done alone. You and your team may be the experts when it comes to learning, but without the skills and knowledge from across your organization you can’t deliver.

There are two key players who can make or break your project:

Stakeholders

From kick off to sign off, your key business partners’ buy-in and approval is essential.

Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)

SMEs make sure your learning is relevant, up to date and engaging. Without them identifying or creating credible examples and stories is almost impossible. Read this blog post on how to work best with your SMEs

Collaborating effectively with these colleagues speeds up production so you can meet training needs and respond to emerging skill gaps more quickly. And with everyone onboard with your best practice approach, you can even start to increase their involvement. Rather than just being your gateway to content and audience, SMEs can become elearning authors. With the right support and collaborative tool, they can input content directly into your authoring platform. Freeing up you and your L&D team to focus on strategic oversight, building quality and maintaining consistency.

Zsolt Olah, Senior Learning Technologist, Amazon
Rethinking learner engagement to deliver real impact

We’ve drawn on the experience of L&D teams who are taking this more collaborative approach to content creation. Their experiences have highlighted two key tools for effective collaboration during digital learning development.

Ready-to-go with templates

Don’t reinvent the wheel with every learning project. Using templates reduces the time you need to create courses with real impact.

“I could create templates, that aligned with the nCino brand and what our other courses look like, but also that incorporated instructional design best practices”

Olivia Cunningham, Instructional Designer, nCino
Customer spotlight: Guided Authoring

Start by building up a good selection of templates with specific training purposes in mind. Make sure they’re on brand, ready-styled, and have a sensible flow to them.

Once you and your colleagues – the L&D experts – are happy with the templates you’ve created you can open them up to be used by your SMEs. They’re experts in their own area and not learning designers, but with ready-to-go templates they can produce the building blocks of quality elearning straight away.

Help SMEs stay on track with your templates by:

Curating best practice examples:

Bring together some great examples of the learning your organization produces. Suggest templates to SMEs so they can get off to a great start with the most appropriate template for their learning.

Providing baked in guidance:

A template, even with on-brand styling and a structure, is still an empty shell. Go further and include advice and guidance in your template, so SMEs use your templates correctly to include case studies, stories, videos, questions and much more.

Making asking for help as easy as possible:

In their normal day job, an in-house expert will turn to a colleague for advice or input when needed. Encourage this in their elearning creation too and help them get their project done more efficiently.

Top tip: If you’ve got a great design, why not reuse it? Whether it’s localizing existing learning or reworking an effective design, duplicating courses means you don’t have to start from scratch and maximizes the impact of your effort.

Want to find out more ways to support your SMEs?
Check out our guide to setting SMEs up for success.

Download the guide Book a demo

Clear review stages

The key to ensuring you’re creating impactful elearning is to set and hold up standards. Getting the right people’s input and review at the right points in the process will help you do this.

Clear review stages:

Make sure each project has clearly identified review stages and reviewers. This will help you ensure projects are on track. When and how often this takes place may vary depending on the size/risk of the project. Flex your approach but make sure it’s defined on each project.

Ensure you have oversight:

If SMEs are using your ready-to-go templates, L&D should support and have full oversight. Make sure you are available for regular check-ins and final review points.

Keep the review process in one place:

Authoring tools, like Elucidat, make the whole review process simple for everyone involved. Seamlessly invite and manage reviewers inside your authoring platform, in a streamlined and efficient way. No more feedback hidden in long email chains or huge spreadsheets!

With 60% of employees rating their elearning fair to poor,
it’s time to give them learning experiences to talk about.

This interactive elearning course is designed to transform your elearning design in just six steps.

Access the course

Summary

Effective elearning is about more than slick presentation. It’s about behavior change. It motivates and instructs learners on how to make changes that will improve their performance in the workplace. With that in mind, the best methods for designing great elearning all come down to your learner and their behaviors too.

1. Find out what your learners need

All elearning – in fact, all training – should be aiming to improve performance or solve a problem within the business. It goes without saying that unless you know what problem you’re trying to fix, you’re unlikely to be able to fix it. So, every elearning project should start with understanding your audience, their learning styles and training goals.

2. Put our best practice principles in action

Make it relevant and useful by providing context and examples.
Get truly interactive using storytelling, reflective questions and practical activities.
Keep it concise by writing short, active content and developing microlearning as part of wider blended learning journeys.
Ensure digital learning is easy to access by developing responsive and inclusive content.

3. Get set up for success with the right processes

Our tried and tested 5C framework will help you to plan, design, create, optimize and commercialize your elearning programs. Effective collaboration using templates and review tools speeds up the process and allows you and your L&D team to focus on quality and consistency.

Discover more ways you can create impactful elearning courses here, and see how to implement a successful training design process.

You can allow access this ‘How to create engaging elearning’ course to earn a certification in elearning design.

We can help you do it!

Elucidat is the collaborative tool your team needs to produce learning that excites and engages your audience. Guided workflows and ready made, expert designed templates make it easy for anyone to produce high quality digital learning at speed.

Enhanced collaboration features makes the review process seamless and maintains standards. Empowering you and your colleagues in the L&D team to expand content production and capture expertise, all while increasing learning quality!

Create engaging, impactful elearning with Elucidat

Get started now today!

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How to successfully manage multi-language learning content at scale

Marcus Markovic — Tue, 01 Apr 2025 10:12:40 +0000

The ultimate guide for enterprise L&D teams

Unlock the full potential of your digital learning programs worldwide by mastering multi-language content management.

This guide provides essential processes, tools, and practical examples to help your L&D team effectively manage and deliver elearning content across various languages.

Introduction

Want your digital learning to make an impact across the globe? You need to speak your learners’ language – literally. EdTech data reveals when elearning is localized into languages it boosts productivity by 50%. But delivering this impact with truly accessible, relevant, and effective digital learning globally isn’t straightforward.

Whether it’s struggling with version control or relying on expensive external translation agencies, the challenges stack up. And without the right tools and processes in place, costs and timescales can quickly escalate.

However, there is another way. Leading organizations are moving away from traditional translation methods and adopting scalable, centralized, and streamlined ways of working.

This guide sets out how they’re doing this, including processes and tools, examples, and checklists to help you do the same.

The current state of play: Multi-language learning in global enterprises

In today’s fast-paced, global enterprises, elearning translation is a must. With more digital learning content and a growing list of language requirements, L&D teams need to scale up their translation efforts. Add in the complexity of multiple authoring platforms and translation tools, and suddenly, the workload skyrockets.

It’s no wonder many organizations turn to external translation agencies – increasing costs and extending their timelines. Or worse, leave their employees to struggle in a second language – causing a massive dip in the effectiveness of the learning.

Under pressure to do more with less, L&D teams need new streamlined ways to deliver global digital learning with real impact. That means moving away from external agencies and setting up centralized processes that remove the challenges of in-house translation, boosting efficiency, and delivering more impactful global learning experiences.

The consequences of traditional learning content translation methods

Before we explore what this new approach to elearning translation looks like, let’s dive deeper into why the traditional methods aren’t cutting it.

Not translating

Limiting language options or skipping translation altogether might seem like an easy choice. But if learners can’t grasp the content, the entire training falls flat. For compliance training, this can lead to serious risk.

And don’t forget the bigger picture: 78% of businesses reported better morale and engagement when elearning was provided in employees’ first language.

Impact:

Lower effectiveness
Compliance risks
Reduced employee engagement

External translation agencies

External agencies can take care of the whole translation process, but this comes with a steep price tag. Rates are often based on word count. As your learning content grows, so does the cost.

Back-and-forth review processes and capacity limitations means agencies can have long turnaround times. Specialized content, rush orders, or extra revisions may also increase the cost and timeline.

Impact:

Increased costs
Extended timelines
Scaling issues

In-house translation

In-house translation gives you more control, but it can drain resources. Without a dedicated translation team, employees across the organization end up juggling translations on top of their day jobs. Timelines often slip, inconsistencies appear, and version control gets messy. L&D often ends up struggling to manage the process.

Impact:

Longer timelines
Inefficient processes
Inconsistencies and errors

Having outlined the significant drawbacks of traditional translation methods, we’ll now delve into best practices that streamline processes and enhance content delivery across languages.

Best practices for managing multi-language
learning content efficiently

Leading organizations are ditching traditional methods in favor of smarter, in-house solutions for delivering impactful multi-language learning content. The key to doing this successfully? Scalable, centralized, and streamlined processes powered by automation and Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Let’s take a look at each of these below.

Scalable

Don’t wait for the translation requests to start stacking up. Shift from being reactive to proactive by setting up a clear, consistent process that will help you to scale-up elearning translation without stress. With the right approach, you can empower everyone to play an effective part in meeting your growing language needs, while maintaining control, quality, and consistency.

Do

Empower employees with smart tools and quick processes to translate proactively.

Don’t

React to increasing translation needs by falling back on ineffective methods.

Centralized

Managing separate language versions is a headache that can lead to errors and discrepancies. Keep all your translations in one place. From brand alignment to regular updates, a centralized workflow will help you maintain consistency and relevance across multiple languages.

Do

Select tools that centralize your translation efforts for better control and consistency.

Don’t

Duplicate content for every language – chaos will follow.

Streamlined

Avoid unnecessary work and rework by streamlining your process. Define roles and responsibilities at each stage, so everyone knows what’s expected of them. When a task is clear, people can stay focused and collaborate more efficiently and effectively to deliver successful translations.

Do

Standardize translation processes with defined roles for SMEs, translators and reviewers.

Don’t

Assume centralization will magically fix everything – clarity and structure are key.

Leverage automation and AI

Automation and AI can help you streamline your process, slashing translation time and effort. Instead of starting from scratch or outsourcing, AI gives you an initial translation that can be reviewed for final tweaks. Less time. Less cost. More efficiency.

Do

Explore authoring tools with automation, AI translation and review features built in for a more seamless experience.

Don’t

Rely fully on automated translation or your translations could be full of inconsistencies and errors – human review is non-negotiable.

Leverage automation & AI

Now, let’s explore how effective localization ensures our content not only communicates but truly connects with global audiences.

Localization vs translation

To fully engage learners from various cultural backgrounds, organizations must go beyond mere translation. Giving your learners the freedom to select their preferred language is a great start.

Let’s look at a great example of this:

View example

However, to truly connect with global learners, you need to localize your content. It’s not just about replacing words in one language with equivalent ones in another language. Localization is all about making the learning feel right for the region, respecting cultural nuances and local contexts.

Effective localization:

Improves accessibility
Increases learner engagement
Delivers better outcomes
Improves culture
Increases brand loyalty

Localizing your learning content does complicate the translation process, creating more work and adding more variation between language versions. Fortunately, with the right centralized, streamlined, and automated approach, localization becomes easy.

4 tips for effective elearning localization

So, how do you put this into practice? Here are four tips to help you with localization:

Start early: Initiate localization at the course design stage to ensure adaptability of structure, visuals, and content, paving the way for seamless cultural integration.
Engage local experts: Collaborate with local language speakers and subject matter experts to ensure content is both accurate and culturally attuned.
Test content: Pilot your courses with a target audience to refine language and cultural relevance based on direct feedback.
Stay updated: Continuously refresh your content to keep pace with cultural shifts and evolving learner needs.

Selecting the right tools

There are many ways to tackle elearning translation and localization. The key is to keep things simple. And that’s where an all-in-one translation management system comes in.

From developing the original digital learning to releasing your translated variations, finding the right tool for your translation needs is a game-changer.

Capabilities to look for:

Languages: Confirm that the tool translates into your organization’s target languages.
Glossary: Make sure the tool allows you to create a glossary of key terms for reference during automated translations – saving you time and effort during the review process.
Review: Check out the tool’s review workflow. Can you centrally manage the review process? How easy is it for your reviewers to provide feedback on the translation?
Updates: Explore how updates are deployed across all language variations. Are updates made to each language variation or made once and automatically applied to all variations?
Release: Identify the tool’s release options. Can you release each language separately and create multi-language courses?
Integration: Ensure the tool you select works smoothly with your Learning Management System (LMS) or other platforms.

Selecting an all-in-one translation management system simplifies and streamlines the entire elearning translation process, from creation to release, ensuring efficiency and integration with existing systems.

Now let’s take a quick look at real-world example…

Case study: MaxMara’s Global Reach

International luxury fashion brand, MaxMara is a great example of how it’s possible to deliver impactful content globally. Serving their 10,000+ global audience in their native language is a given, through the easy in-built translation process.

They create high-end, fully on-brand elearning that’s fit for fashion houses and genuinely inclusive of their staff in different regions. This approach ensures that MaxMara’s training content reaches and resonates with individuals working on any sub brand and in any language.

Read Max Mara’s story

The ideal translation management workflow

Feeling inspired and ready to transform your translation process? Here’s what the new improved workflow looks like compared to the traditional methods.

Moving from…

Multiple tools
Duplicated courses for each language
Manual export / import of language files
Translation review in documents
Time consuming updates
Lengthy process

Moving to…

A single tool
All language variations centralized
Instant machine translation
Integrated review tool
Update synced across variations
Streamlined process

Start managing multiple languages easily

The multi-language learning checklist

So, how do you get up and running with this new multi-language learning management system? It’s more involved than just choosing a tool and clicking the “Translate” button. With a wide range of features and workflows, you need to make sure your system meets your needs.

Consider the areas in this checklist as you work through the deployment process.

Pre-deployment

Identify your business needs

What are your target languages?
What level of localization is required? And does this vary by language?
How often will the content need to be updated?

Plan your budget

How can you best use your resources and budget to meet your business needs?
Will one translation approach always work (e.g. centralized)? Or will you need to use alternatives (e.g. external agencies) depending on project priorities?

Select your platforms and tools

What are your priority features and what are ‘nice-to-haves’?
How user friendly is the tool? Will it work for the skill/experience level of your team and other colleagues you may involve in the translation process?
How will the tool integrate with your LMS and/or other platforms

Deployment

Decide whether to implement AI translation

Will you be leveraging machine translation? If so, do you need to set up a glossary for key terms?

Establish key roles and responsibilities

What are the key roles and how will they be involved in each stage of the process?
How can you set up your tool’s permissions to ensure each employee can focus on their role in the process, and avoid inconsistency slipping in?

Implement translation and review workflows

Who will review each language version for accuracy? How much time will each reviewer need?
What does your ideal review process look like? Will reviewers leave feedback or make edits to the content?
What does the final Quality Assurance (QA) process look like?
Who will provide final sign off for the language variations to go live?

Post-deployment

Collect analytics on engagement and comprehension

What KPIs have you selected to measure?
What data will provide a clear picture of each KPI? Will you use a combination of quantitative and qualitative data?

Optimize workflows based on user feedback

Who will be involved in analyzing your data and making the decisions based on your findings?
What is your process for deploying improvements?

Review cost and ROI for continuous improvement

What KPIs you will measure?
What data will provide a clear picture of each KPI? Will you use a combination of quantitative and qualitative data?

Download the full checklist

In summary

In today’s fast-paced, global enterprises, L&D teams need to scale up their translation efforts. Traditional translation methods aren’t delivering the impactful global learning experiences that employees want and need.

Here’s a recap of what to take forward:

Limiting the languages may simplify things, but it also reduces the impact, lowers learner engagement and can lead to potential compliance risks
Using external agencies outsources your translation effort, but this comes with increased costs and timelines, and it’s not scalable.
In house translation provides more control but many organization struggle to make it work at scale.

The solution? Centralize, streamline, and automate. With the right multi-language learning management system, you can:

Speed up translation
Reduce cost and effort
Simplify learning content management
Maintain consistency, accuracy and relevance
Increase the impact of your learning

We can help you do it!

Get a smarter, faster way to produce transformative global elearning with Elucidat’s Auto-Translate.

Find more about how our multi-language translation feature can help you simplify elearning translation.

We’ll even tailor your demo to show you how we can help you solve your biggest elearning translation challenges.

Book a demo

How to develop a modern digital learning strategy

Inês Graça — Wed, 14 Aug 2019 10:00:41 +0000

What is a digital learning and development strategy?

Businesses have faced a lot of turbulence in recent years. Economic pressures. Rapid technological advances. Emerging skill gaps. Organizations have navigated these challenges with the support of L&D teams. And this is only going to continue.

As new technology transforms the way we work, the demand for online learning has never been higher. So, it’s no surprise that digital is important or very important to their overall L&D strategy for 96% of learning leaders.

But what does a successful digital learning strategy look like? Why do some of these organizations drive impact from their digital learning, while others fail to reap the Return On Investment (ROI)?

A digital learning strategy isn’t just about the success of an individual project. It’s a plan for how your business will create and use digital learning in all its forms. That means identifying smart ways to produce elearning at speed and scale. This guide sets out the steps you can take for successful online learning that delivers real business impact.

Many organizations start their digital learning initiative with expectations similar to, ‘We have 50,000 hours of learning for all our employees! Can you imagine the impact this initiative will have?!’ However, such a broad initiative often lacks focus and strategy. One year later, the utilization rate for noncompliance courses is often below 10%. After all, just because your local library has 10,000 books doesn’t mean you will read all of them—or even go to the library. Centre for Creative Leadership: ‘6 strategies for digital learning success’

Make your digital learning the go-to place for answers and learning in your organization, time and time again. Drive up user engagement, reach, reuse and, of course, the impact of your digital learning on business performance and productivity by reading on.

We’re struggling to increase engagement, and therefore retention, with our content.”

We have libraries of content with no clear context or goal and no link to employees’ careers.’’
Issues highlighted by survey respondents to the State of Digital Learning Report 2024

Our role is to signpost to key learnings but everyone’s getting lost in the enormity of everything.”

What is a digital learning and development strategy?

In a nutshell, a digital learning and development strategy is about shaping the way your organization uses digital learning in all its forms. This can range from blogs and videos to webinars and online collaboration through to online courses, immersive experiences and resources. The aim is always to help employees learn new skills, enhance their performance or develop themselves for the future.

“Digital Learning does not mean learning on your phone, it means ‘bringing learning to where employees are.’ It is a ‘way of learning’ not a ‘type of learning.”

The Power of Collaborative Learning: Josh Bersin

A modern digital learning and development strategy…

Strives to help digitally overwhelmed and busy people improve their performance where and when it matters. It does this with the very best, carefully selected experiences and resources available (not all of the content available on a topic!).

Empowers end users to use digital learning content flexibly – when they want, on the device they want, and how they want. For example, a video might not always be right for them or be a good choice in that moment when a one-page guide will do.

Requires critically reviewing the performance of every learning platform. Are they delivering ROI and the desired results to support the business strategy? There might be another platform altogether that’s being used by employees to connect, share and learn – is your strategy missing a trick?

Needs to work now and in the future, and that means it needs to be measured, adaptable and iterative.

How digital fits in your wider learning and development strategy

The majority of organizations make use of a range of learning and development methodologies. This incorporates synchronous (learning you complete at the same time as others) and asynchronous (learning you complete at your own pace) offers. Digital learning can take either of these forms.

Using a combination of learning formats is called a blended learning strategy. For example, one initiative might start with asynchronous learning made up of a video teaser and followed by elearning. This could be supported by synchronous learning during a team meeting on Zoom. You may also include in-person training, such as a one-to-one coaching session with a manager, where relevant.

Don’t dive straight and start creating content. Successful organisations think holistically about their overarching L&D blend first. Consider which methodologies drive the best results in different places during the learning journey. This enables you to focus on the role digital learning plays in your blend. So, whether you’re reviewing your employee training program or shifting your learning to the point of need, a blended learning strategy can help you maximize your impact.

“Too often in the past, we’ve created learning programs, and that’s the endpoint. But learning shouldn’t end. So around it, we built lots of different things to support people who are going through that training…and make sure the training was embedded.”

Jason Flynn, Global Head of Learning at GfK

Top tips for getting started with blended learning

Have a clear list of the benefits different modes of learning offer – see below!

Revisit a previous project that was delivered either fully in the classroom or virtual classroom. Map out an ideal blend of digital formats as a conceptual experiment. Could you test this approach out?

Start testing some mini blends out. Before your next virtual classroom-based course, give participants a digital quiz or diagnostic to determine their prior knowledge. Provide a digital follow-up afterwards, such as an elearning scenario to practice with. Measure the impact.

Review an online course and, as with above, assess what shouldn’t be there. What would be better to do as an online discussion or an assignment? Break it up into a digital blend. There’s lots of different shapes and sizes of digital learning to play with, after all.

Review a face-to-face session or virtual classroom critically. What shouldn’t be there? What doesn’t lend itself to group learning? What would be better off as some personal digital training?

Involve your trainers in your digital solution. Their experience in virtual classrooms will provide vital learner insights.

Synchronous learning vs asynchronous learning – What are the benefits of each?

The best blended learning and development strategies tap into the highest value opportunities offered by the different modes of learning. So, which mode is best for what?

Having a clear list of the benefits of synchronous learning vs asynchronous will help guide your team and strategy. Here are some tips.

5 benefits of synchronous learning

Conversation

Participants can discuss, share stories, and ask questions.

Collaboration

Participants can work together in real time on tasks and activities and learn from one another.

Can practice

Participants can try things out and talk to other people within the organization.

Carry out roleplays

Test out conversation, presentation, facilitation and coaching skills, and get feedback from peers and experts.

Coaching

Facilitators and experts can guide and coach participants, support them, recap points or push them further as and when needed.

Virtual classrooms, video conferences and online group work lends itself to many of the above.

5 benefits of asynchronous learning

Empowering

opportunity for workplace learning and development is the #1 reason people want to work at an organization. Technology puts learning and development in the hands of your end users and offers them freedom around how and when they use it.

Measurable/Flexible

with learning analytics available within most modern learning tools, digital learning enables you to track employee engagement with learning. This includes shares, drop-off points, user comments and lots more.

Connected

xAPI learning technologies can connect the dots between all kinds of resources, experiences and activities that make up an individual’s learning journey. This enables you to guide employees from one relevant piece to the next to make learning continuous.

Always available

people learn on the fly, in the moment, on their commute – basically when they can or when they want to. Digital learning is always on and can be delivered in bite-size pieces that allow it to be used flexibly.

5 Personalized

modern learning technologies enable you to produce personalized or adaptive learning solutions that target an individual’s role, needs and skills gaps.

To explore more about the importance of elearning, take a look at the benefits of elearning in the workplace.

Hear from successful L&D teams that are making the most of digital learning in their organizations.

Fight the forgetting curve: weaving spaced learning into your blend

Even the best blend will have a limited impact, if it doesn’t stick. Creating long-term memories is crucial for effective learning. But research has proven that this isn’t easy. German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus’ pioneering trials on human memory illustrate that retaining information isn’t a given. According to the Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve, people only retain 21% of what they learn within a month.

So how do you combat this?

Rather than asking learners to sit through hours of learning which they’ll likely forget in a month’s time, space it out. Break learning into short chunks. Introduce concepts and increase the complexity over time. Provide opportunities to reflect and practice. This spaced repetition allows you to build up learner competence and confidence incrementally across a period of time.

”Creating a memory, in psychology, is the process of encoding, storing and retrieving. That makes it sound pretty simple, right? I learned something. I encode it, I store it, I get it in there and then I just bring it back out when I want it. It makes it sound like it can happen a lot faster than it does. Whereas the neuroscience, when you look into the brain, it might have to grow a whole new piece of brain network to do this. The brain is expending a lot of energy and requires a lot of dedicated focus to learn and to create that memory.”

Lauren Waldman, Founder, Learning Pirate

Joining forces with the brain to deliver long term L&D impact

Top tips for creating effective spaced repetition

Focus on actions

Explore activities that build competence, confidence, and skills. Work back from these to consider what learners need. That could be guidance, examples, expert tips – to name just a few.

Personalize the learning curve

Send out learning on a regular basis or let employees work through the content more freely, unlocking the next level as they go. If your elearning platform has the functionality, adapt the content based on how the learner is doing.

Build in incentives

Consider allocating scores, badges, certificates or some kind of reward for completing parts of the learning. Help your learners celebrate with social media links.

Create a scale

Work out what learners should start with and where they can go from there. For example, you might want to create challenges that get incrementally harder.

Create milestones

Even if the learning is covering a big expanse of skills and competencies, don’t let it go on forever. Everyone needs a sense of completion and greater achievement.

To explore more ways to maximize your impact, check out our 5 tips to make your microlearning strategy really deliver.

How to create a successful digital corporate learning and development strategy

Today learners actively seek answers to their questions online and expect digital learning to be part of their workplace offering.

So, how do you shape a successful digital learning strategy in your organization? Can digital learning, in its many forms, meet the needs of the business and end users across your whole organization?

Is it possible to be people-centered and personal, yet produce online learning efficiently and at scale?

“Digital learning is an increasingly regular part of all employees’ lives. Last year, people were accessing learning every month and quarter. Now, it’s becoming a more daily and weekly commitment. Although there’s been a rise in employees completing digital learning at home, usually on a desktop or laptop, this generally happens during working hours. 85% complete digital learning during working hours.”

Explore these and many more stats on what modern enterprise learners want.

Traits of an effective digital learning strategy – L&D team dos and don’ts

Identify performance needs by working with end users
Speak to employees and experts to discover the most useful content and approaches for them
Connect the dots between useful content that already exists
Support people to work toward developmental goals by helping them navigate the most useful learning experiences and ensuring they have time to complete these within working hours

Overall, an empowering approach rather than top-down delivery helps your L&D strategy deliver more impact.

Take a “top down” or content-led approach, ignoring your audience
Take “orders” for training requests from senior leaders without challenge
Push new content and courses out as a way to solve all problems – adding to employee overwhelm
Think short term only, and in siloed, role-specific ways that disable talent from growing or moving roles

Common challenges L&D teams face

Successfully integrating digital learning into your corporate learning and development strategy is not easy. L&D teams in large organizations face huge variations in:

Location and time zones of employees and their team
User needs and expectations
Business and customer requirements
Language and culture
Technology systems and habits
Manager relationships and approaches
Performance reviews and development planning
What they are “told” is a learning priority by top leaders

This is why successful elearning strategies are never one size and shape and include multiple goals and measures of success.

5 reasons why your digital learning strategy should not start with technology

Effective learning starts with understanding key performance and employee challenges. Jumping into a specific tech option before shaping the problems could lead you down the wrong path.

Your employees are probably already using some tech platforms for learning – informally or formally. Think Teams, Slack, your Intranet. There could be a good reason not to break that habit.

Investments in learning technology do not directly affect learning impact – it’s what you do with it that counts. Adding in yet more technologies can actually hinder productivity and usage, not boost it.

Seize the opportunity to learn before you expand. Unearth the successes and failures of previous learning tech investments before you invest in others.

You might not need new technology. Many modern xAPI-based digital learning platforms are able to knit together content and learning experiences held in different formats, in different places, and track and present individualized user journeys. It may be that you don’t need to move everything to a new place, but instead focus on creating a seamless learning ecosystem.

“Artificial Intelligence (AI) isn’t replacing any of the roles that I’ve ever been in in L&D. I still have those technical knowledge requirements. I still need to review all of my content for accuracy. Instead of thinking about tech as in competition for your job, we just need to see it as an enhancement or an accelerator.”

Angie Elliott, Manager of Sales Enablement and Talent Development, Hormel Foods

Using generative AI to free up your L&D team

If you are in the market for new learning technologies – be it social learning platforms, learning experience platforms, learning management systems, learning content management systems, authoring software, curation tools, AI tools and more – the first step is to put together your wish list of requirements by in-depth consultation.

You need to get to the heart of actual, typical or major performance challenges real employees face, why those challenges or barriers exist, and what would actually help them. You can do this by using learning analytics, user surveys and data around the use of previous tech alongside other training needs analysis methods.

Explore more about available learning technologies and how to put together your buyer’s wish list with the Ultimate authoring buyers guide.

5 tips to developing a winning digital learning strategy

Tip #1 Don’t start with learning technology

While technology is at the heart of digital and modern workplace learning, don’t reach for new tools and platforms straight away. Technology in itself is not the (full) answer.

What not to do:

Get software
Spit out learning
Add content
Expect it to be used

Tip #2 Consult

82% of people are more likely to stay at a company if it invests in their professional development. However, 60% of employees in large organizations rate their elearning as fair to poor. L&D’s efforts are clearly falling flat.

Modern technology makes it super-easy to create, curate and share new courses and content. But should you?

“The idea is you stop people – stakeholders, clients, the business – at the point they say, ‘we need a course’. And let’s not be rude about our clients. We exist to serve the business. The reason they come to us and say, ‘we need a course’, and ultimately, we start to feel like order takers, is because all they’ve known is education. That’s what they think we do. They think they understand our role and what we do. And unless we demonstrate – show not say – something better or different, why wouldn’t they?”

Stop going through the motions and start delivering learning impact
Nick Shackleton-Jones, CEO and Founder of Shackleton Consulting

Get close to the real problems

Effective modern learning and development teams shift their focus from “what can we produce” to “what is actually needed?” They do this by consulting with different areas of the business, with managers and employees, to uncover performance barriers and gaps that need dealing with.

Prioritize on key goals

Find five or less focus areas that will actually unblock productivity or performance for the business. Over a year, this will have a far greater effect than trying to deliver a solution to every “training need” you are told about by managers.

Use learning analytics

An effective digital learning and development strategy will also focus heavily on using learning analytics and having defined a goal. You should ideally be checking in on the progress of your strategy against that goal to get the product right.

“Make sure you capture the data and evidence and understand it. Capture the data upfront. Quantify the problem. Test your thing, showcase the potential impacts, then go do it again. It sounds really simplistic, but [otherwise] you’re just playing around the edges, doing nice stuff, keeping your conspiracy going.”

Tackling flatlining business productivity with future focused L&D

Simon Gibson, Group Head of Learning & Development at Marks and Spencer

Carry out a learning technology audit

What is getting used for workplace performance support and development by employees? (Don’t assume but ask and observe!)

Is it what you expected? How can you bolster that? How can you streamline any disjointed parts of people’s exploration of “digital learning” in your organization? What opportunities can you see in the current picture that help bring learning into the workflow?

Pink link box:

Case study: How data-driven elearning created growth and widened reach

Tip 3: Cull and consolidate content

An effective modern L&D team who already has a lot of digital learning content out there will take the time to clear out the clutter. Old courses that are out of date and don’t work across devices will drag down the user experience, damage the reputation of your digital learning content and do more harm than good. Even if the content itself is valid.

If you have 23 available resources to help someone meet a specific performance goal:

Pick out the best (use analytics to help you)
Promote those above all
Ensure all content is simply and clearly labelled
Make sure learners can hop from one piece to the next easily, as they want
Filter for different roles and levels of experience

“Now is a really good time to Marie Kondo your content. Pick out each piece of learning that does not spark joy. We built a lot of stuff during the pandemic. It’s time to go through it and to say, what’s working? What doesn’t work? What needs to be distilled?’

Lori Niles-Hofmann, Senior Learning EdTech Transformation Strategist at NilesNolen

Supporting the shift to becoming a skills-based organization

Tip 4: Curate and socialize learning

Content curation is always popular with L&D teams. Of course, it can save time and budget compared to creating content from scratch. But it can also create a more user-friendly learning experience.

Curate useful digital experiences, discussion points, and performance support resources that relate to a given topic or goal. Make sure learners can connect the dots to easily access them, through technology.

Grassroots or ground-up learning

An effective digital learning ecosystem sees employees sharing and liking resources from outside and inside the organization, both content that’s ground-up and content that’s formally been created. Actively enable and support ground-up approaches and the socialization or sharing of learning, in any form.

As part of your L&D strategy, you should find a way to support and utilize this social and grassroots movement. And that goes back to consulting – paying attention to what goes on, where – and building on that.

“Partnering with Elucidat experts was the best investment SGS could make. It allowed our team to discover the “digital learning designers” in them. The partnership allowed them to create and deliver with speed.”

Find out how SGS empowered technical experts within their business to share their expertise by creating digital learning.

Tip 5: Embrace Collaborative Content Creation

Around a fifth of L&D teams highlighted that effective collaboration helped them respond to business needs last year. Collaborative Content Creation is about unlocking expertise from any employee within your organization to create effective learning. Opening up authoring to novice authors expands capacity and increases efficiencies. It also helps cover those specialist subject areas unique to your organization.

Embracing collaborative models and methods is critical to delivering impact at speed and scale. Organizations that focus on collaborative authoring by adopting this workflow have seen exceptional benefits, including;

Cutting learning costs
Filling skills gaps
Meeting learning demand
Seeing faster turnarounds
Delivering impactful learning

“We don’t have a centralized training function, and we want to empower SMEs to build their own content. With the recent introduction of templates in Elucidat, they find it very easy to design their own content…What Elucidat has done is empowered our SMEs so they can create really engaging online learning”

Jo Grantham, Training Lead, Oxfam

“One of the ideas was to essentially build a community of people from all parts of the business that we’re able to either create or co-create solutions with us, and effectively start to remove ourselves from being a blocker.”

Jonathan Holmes, Digital Learning and Strategy Manager, Domestic & General

Want to find out more? Get some insider tips on how to set up successful collaborative content creation models from L&D leaders at Aviva, nCino, Coca-Cola and D&G and read more about Oxfam’s digital learning journey.

Summary

The key to an effective digital corporate learning and development strategy is a blended approach based on user-centered research. Digging into your employees’ current habits, needs, trends and opportunities will help your team set up a strategy for success now and in the future.

Digital learning has many benefits for the modern workplace. It doesn’t require large groups of people to be in one physical space working at the same pace. Instead, it prioritizes flexibility, personalization and learning in the flow of work. As technology continues to transform our workplaces, it’s time to make sure digital is at the heart of your blended learning strategy.

As you implement your strategy, make the most of learning analytics to discover what’s working and what you can iterate. Keep your ears to the ground and your eyes on the impact and your digital learning strategy will take off!

Back up your strategy with the right tools for the job

From transitioning to Elucidat, to making big project releases go smoothly, we’ll make sure your elearning is a huge success – both for your team and your learners.

Book a free tailored demo today

To see how Elucidat can help you to produce digital learning that delivers a transformational impact, as well as developing an effective online learning strategy.

Book a demo today

Useful resources

State of Digital Learning Report 2024 – Elucidat
‘6 strategies for digital learning success’ – Centre for Creative Leadership
How to build an outstanding elearning development process: The complete guide – Elucidat
The Power of Collaborative Learning – Josh Bersin
Learning At Large Podcast – Elucidat
Customer stories – Elucidat
Learning Methods Factsheet – CIPD
The ultimate authoring tools buyers guide – Elucidat

How to build an outstanding elearning development process: The complete guide

Inês Graça — Thu, 06 Jun 2019 13:30:25 +0000

Introduction

Developing learning in large organizations can involve a lot of people – all with different priorities, experience and skills. To be successful, everyone needs to work together to deliver the desired results. But this isn’t always happening. According to the Institute, training and development projects commonly fail to add value because of a lack of specific direction and focus.. So, how can you set your projects up for success and drive them forward to deliver impactful digital learning?

It may not be seen as the most exciting or creative part of a project, but your elearning development process can make or break your digital learning. A clear process will help you stay on track while empowering everyone to bring their best to the table. This isn’t just about the success of an individual project. Building in a consistent framework enables you to grow quality and scale-up elearning production with less stress.

At Elucidat, we’ve learned from the wins and war stories of hundreds of learning teams in global enterprise organizations. While no two processes are identical, we’ve identified some critical elements. This guide sets out the must-do steps you need to take to develop successful online learning.

What is an elearning development process?

An elearning development process is a set of steps that get you from “We need some learning to help us with this problem” to “Problem solved!”. It includes checking whether elearning is the best solution, creating the elearning, getting it in front of learners, and refining it over time.

There’s no one ‘right’ process; the details will vary based on factors such as the size of your organization, the skills in your L&D team and the tools you use. But based on our experience supporting L&D teams that create content for over 15 million learners between them, there are some key steps. We recommend you follow these, regardless of your situation.

Think of this as the elearning production process 101.

Benefits of having a clear elearning methodology

With demand for digital learning at an all-time high, the pressure is on to respond at speed. Some elearning teams may be tempted to free fall through their elearning design, making it up as they go along. It’s so easy to communicate throughout the project lifecycle via social working tools that “going with the flow” might feel intuitive. Perhaps there’s also an assumption that creative design requires a blank slate and no fixed rules.

However, we find that organizations that put even basic elearning development processes in place achieve stronger results. They:

Set out and work toward clear goals

Work more efficiently and get learning products to market quicker

Reuse tools and templates to their creative advantage

More easily onboard and bring stakeholders along with them on the journey

Proactively put lessons learned from other projects into new ones

Involve end users and – most importantly – put them at the heart of every stage

So, how do you develop a process that maximizes these benefits? Read on to explore the most common elearning development processes and see our recommended steps and tips for successful production – from start to finish.

What’s the best development process to use?

If you search for “elearning development processes,” you’re sure to find plenty of different results and lots of debate around which is the best one to use. Here’s a quick overview of some of the most common models and their pros and cons:

ADDIE

ADDIE is a longstanding elearning development process. It stands for Analyze, Design, Development, Implementand Evaluate. In its traditional form, it guides you systematically through one stage at a time. The idea is that you don’t move on to the next stage until “sign off” of the previous stage is complete. More modern takes on ADDIE recognize the risk of not evaluating until a project is launched and put evaluation into each stage.

ADDIE’s evaluation stage is often synonymous with Donald Kirkpatrick’s Four Levels of Learning Evaluation. This is a relatively in-depth and high input form of evaluation that teams often skip due to time constraints.

ADDIE Pros: Easy to implement. Projects are signed off along the way.

ADDIE Cons: Locked down approach that may leave evaluation too late or out of the picture.

Agile

At the other end of the spectrum is the more modern Agile approach. Starting as a software development process, it’s spun off into other applications, including for learning design. At its core is the idea that small multi-skilled teams work collaboratively in “sprints” – short time frames of 1 – 4 weeks – to develop and iterate a solution.

The aim is to have something tangible to share and test with both stakeholders and learners after each sprint. This focus on testing and iterating gives you confidence that the final result will have the desired impact. It also means you have to be open to including your users and sometimes hearing tough feedback, which some teams struggle with.

With authoring tools making it quicker and easier to dive in and produce prototypes and designs, it’s no surprise that this is a popular elearning design process for many.

Agile Pros: Nimble, collaborative and iterative, with the focus on producing something to test over re-working abstract design documents. Brings stakeholders together regularly.

Agile Cons: Not all stakeholders are “agile” aligned and may struggle to work in sprints. Some may struggle to work piecemeal.

5Cs

While the above processes can be applied to many design and development projects, the 5C Framework has been created for elearning projects specifically. Learning design experts here at Elucidat observed the varying processes used by our customers and took the best bits to form a 5-step process with Return On Investment (ROI) and impact at the center.

The 5Cs are:

Capture – start with a clear plan, performance-focused goals and personalized user profiles
Conceptualize – form design ideas around the goals and lead with a prototype
Create – build out the solution with confidence (testing as you go)
Cultivate – use learning analytics to improve and refine the solution
Commercialize – plan and refine how your project will deliver a clear ROI

You’ll notice that the 5th C – Commercialize – runs alongside the other 4Cs. That’s because every project should be focused on and tied to a clear ROI, bringing clear value to end users and reaching as many people as it can. Having this mindset from the start helps elearning development teams stay focused on measurable goals and impact.

5C Framework Pros: Easy to use. Comes with free tools. Puts end users and measurable performance improvements at the heart of the process.

5C Framework Cons: Because it focuses on end users and real-life goals, it can be a bit of a leap for non-designers to land on design ideas that fit that specific bill.

Access free tools and templates to guide you through the 5Cs process

The 4 must-do steps for developing successful elearning

Having outlined some of the processes out there, let’s dive into the detail. Here are four steps that take the best bits from all these processes and translate them into practical actions you can take to make your elearning a success.

Step 1: Set out clear goals for your elearning project

Learners decide in just 7 seconds whether online content is worth their attention. So, what makes it worth their attention? The answer will be different for every piece of elearning and every audience. That’s why every project should start with user profiles and measurable goals. Let’s look at each in turn.

“Think about how you can advocate for your learners. Ask why is this useful? What’s the purpose we serve by implementing this program? I really think that we have an opportunity to influence from a learner centric perspective.”

Stella Lee, Founder, Paradox Learning

Leading with purpose through thoughtful L&D

Create user profiles

When we talk about learning, we’re really talking about changing people’s behaviors and habits. To be successful, you need to get under the skin of your audience. Who are they? What would really help them? What are their go-to places for help currently? What would motivate them to take action? To find out, you need to speak to your learners. At Elucidat, we run an annual study to understand what modern enterprise learners want. But there are lots of other ways to get to know your audience: have conversations, run surveys, observe them, use learning analytics from previous projects and more.

Off the back of what you discover, set up some user profiles.

Set measurable goals

Once you understand your users, get super clear how your elearning project is going to add value to them. Work with stakeholders upfront to decide on the goals you are going to measure for your learning project. Think beyond mere completions and scores, to the business impact you want to have. Ask yourself:

How will I know this elearning has been a success?

If everyone aces this elearning, what will change in the business as a result?

Which business metrics (e.g. sales, customer satisfaction) will this elearning impact?

The idea is to set out the data you’ll track and look for correlations with your elearning.

“Prior to designing a learning solution, let’s have the conversation about the intention. Let’s define what purpose fulfilled looks like. Because if we can define what purpose fulfilled looks like, we can measure the extent to which that purpose was fulfilled.”

Kevin M. Yates, L&D Detective

Using L&D detection to find measures that show purposeful impact

Download for free the Project Planning Template for successful learning

Step 2: Create a clear design vision

With your elearning project goals clear in your mind, set about generating some ideas for how they can be met. This is a great step to do collaboratively, using brainstorming techniques. Crucially, we would recommend you don’t look at the course content to do this. Instead think about what types of activities, experiences, tools and tips are most likely to work for the audience and goals.

Everyone does this differently, so here are some techniques to try as you find out which works best for you:

Mindmapping

Exploring ideas freely and sometimes collaboratively, primarily through text

Storyboarding

Setting out a sequence of potential pages or videos, like a comic strip

Cathy Moore’s Action Mapping

A great way to build out solutions based on building competency and change

Cathy Moore’s Action Mapping

A great way to build out solutions based on building competency and change

Wireframing

Sets out layouts and sample content, without getting caught up in styling

Prototyping

Visual styling and interactive walkthroughs of an idea to test reactions

Prototyping is a crucial step. Even if you’ve worked up ideas on paper, always look to build out something interactive for stakeholders to play around with and review. This could be 5 minutes of your 20-minute topic.

Don’t make prototyping a big deal. Do it early, do it regularly, do it collaboratively. Or, even better, choose an authoring tool that builds you a ready-made prototype in just a few clicks. Embracing prototyping will enable you to improve your design and make your project better in the long run. If you don’t seek or choose to ignore feedback, you’re probably creating your own art project rather than a user-centered design project!

Of course, you don’t have to start from a blank canvas. Seek inspiration from elearning examples, many of which are available for re-use.

Like the idea of a ready-made course structure you can test and iterate?

Find out more about Elucidat’s best practice templates here, and start a free trial.

Step 3: Develop detailed content, smartly

It’s time to get stuck into developing the detailed content, but this doesn’t mean opening the floodgates to the Subject Matter Expert’s (SME’s) cupboard of content. Hold back on that PowerPoint if you can! This stage is often overlooked as the “easy” step in production. You have your design pinned down, so it’s just a case of writing the content, creating the graphics and putting it all together, right? Not quite.

Avoid the temptation to copy and paste dry content into an authoring tool. This won’t result in an effective learning experience. Instead, flip your thinking and make your design model the blueprint. Use the subject matter to support the learning experiences you’re setting out to create. Here’s how…

Design first, content second

It’s often the case that the SMEs for your project don’t come from a learning design background. They might be health and safety experts, compliance officers, sales trainers – ultimately they’re experts in their area rather than in learning. Your challenge is to take their expertise and shape it into a format that fits with your area of expertise – the learning design approach you sketched out in step 2.

Here are two ways to do this.

Collaborate with your SMEs in your elearning authoring tool

Modern authoring tools know that collaboration and crowdsourcing of content is the future, so they’re set up to allow SMEs to actively contribute to the production of elearning content. This is particularly important where elearning needs to be created at scale. Through effective collaboration within your authoring tool, SMEs can create high quality content to help meet demand and take the pressure off you and your team.

So, how would this work in practice?

You can take the prototype you created in step 2, amend it based on user feedback, then invite your SMEs to add their content directly into it. The built prototype already has the activities and interactions built in so your SMEs are adding content into that framework rather than simply adding paragraphs of text. You can work on the project with them at the same time, finessing wording and supporting them with visuals and practical activities.

Collaborate on paper

If your elearning authoring tool doesn’t support collaboration, you could set up some paper-based templates to capture the right kind of content. You may have done this already as part of your design concept work. These could be storyboard or wireframe style templates that mimic the design approach you’ve agreed on. Or they could be templates built in an elearning authoring tool of your choice.

Don’t just hand over the design to them to fill in. Work closely with the SME to explain the kind of content you need from them and what the learner needs to be able to do after the elearning (not just know). Hopefully, they’ll have been involved in your process from the start, so will be in-the-know. This is where your content capture templates come into their own.

Notice how this storyboard guides the SME as they add their content. Ideas, suggestions and word counts all help make sure that the content is provided in a way that fits with the design you’ve already agreed.

“The L&D function’s job is to say: You’re the experts. Here are some ways that we’ve set up that make it really easy for you to share your expertise.”

Heather Gilmartin Adams, Senior Analyst, RedThread Research

Tackling the learning content dilemma with a new model

Curate – don’t always create

Not everything needs creating from scratch. Often, those teams that meet learning needs most effectively are drawing on useful resources and tools that others can benefit from. Pull together, or ask the SME to pull together, any useful existing content that fits your design model. For example, there might be some great on-the-job resources or some YouTube videos that explain the theory better than you ever could (for free?!). Perhaps there’s an existing workshop activity you can rework or an assessment that works well and you can copy?

Get building your content

Once you’re clear on what each page needs to include, you can start putting it all together. Our top tip here is to borrow from Agile and work in sprints. For example:

Set up your overall styling and navigation elements
Set up any elements that will be replicated and re-used – e.g., topic structures, menus and/or pages you will re-use
Build out one topic first – check in on feedback and make changes
Build out the other topics in parallel or one at a time – checking in on feedback as they are completed and make changes
QA as you go, but always fully at the end

Involve stakeholders along the way – especially some sample end users! And don’t be scared to invite others in to edit the content directly, if your tool makes it easy enough to do so.

Involving the right people at the right time will make your elearning process a success

Find out more about this in this Guide to Building an Elearning Dream Team

Step 4: Evaluate engagement and impact

If you’ve followed this elearning development process from the start, you will have designed your elearning around a specific business goal. This could be an increase in sales of a particular product, an improvement in a Net Promoter Score (NPS), a reduction of reported safety incidents – the list goes on. This final step is about evaluating the impact you’re having on that goal and iterating where necessary.

Measure engagement

Many L&D teams are already hot on measuring completion of their elearning courses. This is a great start, but in truth it’s only the first indication of learner engagement. Try digging a bit deeper on a continuous basis, by asking yourself some of these questions:

Which topics within your elearning are most popular? This could indicate your audience is actively looking for support in certain areas.
Which questions are your audience getting right with no problem, and which questions are tripping them up? This could indicate knowledge gaps that impact performance.
Which countries / departments / locations are engaging most with the elearning? This could indicate where you need to do another round of promotion.

Most modern authoring tools will come with built in analytic dashboards that provide this information at a glance. If you don’t have a ready-made dashboard, consider choosing a few key metrics and setting one up for yourself.

Measure impact

With a clear understanding of engagement, it’s time to take your evaluation to the next level. What impact has the elearning had on your business goals? Has it delivered ROI? To work this out, you need to return to your original goal, decided in step 1.

Review your goal and the business metric you plan to impact. Make sure you have a benchmark to measure against.

When you have reached significant engagement levels with your elearning, measure your key metric again and compare it to your benchmark. How are you doing?

Use what you’ve learned from your engagement data to double down your efforts. E.g. if you’ve seen more engagement and more improvement in the US compared to the UK, get UK managers involved in promoting the elearning again.

Evaluating your elearning has the potential to be very complex, but don’t let that stop you from doing anything at all. A handful of the right data points can be enough to measure success.

“Try some stuff. Do a pilot. Do something smaller. Focus on an area where you have an engaged audience already, and try a few little tweaks…You know, it doesn’t have to be big.”

Ashley Sinclair, Managing Director, MAAS Marketing

Think like a marketer to drive L&D impact

Identifying the data that really means something on your project is the key to measuring what counts
Find out more about this in this Guide to Using Data to Design and Refine Elearning

How to speed up elearning content development even more

There’s a fine balance between quality and speed within L&D. Your elearning must be high quality in order to make an impact. But, spend too long perfecting and polishing your elearning and you miss a big window to make an impact. Smart production is about finding the minimum viable product to do the job well, but not overdo it.

Work collaboratively

If you’ve been holding your SMEs and stakeholders at arm’s length, trying to retain control over all aspects of your elearning, consider this your invitation to share the load. Engaging and empowering your SMEs to directly contribute to your elearning is a game changer. They can work into an elearning authoring tool itself, seeing the content come to life and why 300-word blocks of text just aren’t going to cut it. Set them up for success with templates that have design best practice baked in and. With the right support, SMEs can play a key part in helping you achieve quality elearning at scale.

To make it work, you’ll need: A cloud-based authoring tool with smart permission settings that allow you to give your SMEs the permissions they need, and no more!

Find out more about Elucidat’s advanced user management.

Set up reusable elements

There’s no need to start from scratch with each project. Make life quicker and easier by setting up reusable visual styles, elearning structures and page layouts. This will allow you to prototype solutions fast and give you a base from which to make changes for each specific project.

To make it work, you’ll need: An authoring tool that allows you to create and save reusable elements and templates. Or, even better, one that comes pre-loaded with over 25 elearning course templates that you can use as a starting point for your projects.

Find out more about Elucidat’s expert designed, customisable templates.

Test early

Don’t waste time perfecting an elearning module just to realize it’s not having the impact you hoped. Embrace the idea of a Minimum Viable Product, then test, iterate, and test again.

To make it work, you’ll need: A pilot group of learners for each elearning project you create and a tool that enables you to quickly create, publish and analyze your prototypes.

Find out more about Elucidat’s learning analytics suite.

Resource list

Elearning production processes

Definition of the ADDIE Model: Wikipedia
Definition of the Agile Model: Wikipedia
The 5C elearning Framework: Elucidat

Theory around learning production successes and failures

Why Training and Development Fails: ROI Institute
Professionalising Learning Report: CIPD
People-Centred Learning. The modern learning manager’s strategic guide to deliver maximum value: Elucidat.

Other methods for learning analysis and evaluation

Conducting a Learning Needs Analysis: CIPD
Using the Action Mapping Technique: Cathy Moore
Kirkpatrick’s Four Levels of Learning Evaluation: Kirkpatrick

Summary

Whatever way you choose to go with your elearning development process and the exact order you complete each step, three key things are clear:

Collaborative and iterative elearning production processes that involve stakeholders along the way – especially SMEs and end users – produce better outcomes and are more likely to hit their target.

Learning production processes that put time into upfront analysis, clearly shape their goals and keep everyone concentrated on these, and ultimately produce higher ROI.

Learning development that uses data and learning analytics to tweak and refine along the way deliver more impact.

We can help you do it!

Get a smarter, faster way to produce transformative elearning with Elucidat’s authoring platform.

We’ll even tailor your demo to show you how we can help you solve your biggest elearning challenges.

Book a demo today

The 5C framework

Inês Graça — Wed, 20 Mar 2024 18:18:05 +0000

The five Cs will help you to plan, design, create, optimize and commercialize your online learning.

If you’re starting a new project, go through each of the 5Cs in order, downloading the free resources to get tips, checklists, templates and guides for each stage of your project.

Download each of the resources below.

Capture – start with a clear plan

The first step of the 5C Framework helps you to shape the problem, so that you can shape your solution. To set your project up for success you need a plan, right from the outset, that gives clarity on:

Your audience’s needs
The desired outcomes for your project
Potential barriers and how to overcome them
The resources at your disposal

Download PDF Download PowerPoint

Conceptualize – lead with a prototype

The next step in the 5C Framework is to turn what you know about your audience’s needs into a vision for an effective and engaging piece of learning. You’ll need to:

Explore and test the big ideas before getting into the detail
Map your content to your big idea
Create a rapid prototype to test the look, flow and approaches your learning experience will use
Align your team behind a shared vision

Download PDF Download PowerPoint

Create – build with confidence

Only once you’re armed with a plan and clear design concept should you start building your project in your authoring platform. For a streamlined, efficient development process:

Get visual styles in place from the start
Test out your concept with a short section of content first
Collaborate smartly with clear roles and responsibilities
Be clear on your testing process so you can launch with confidence

Download PDF Download PowerPoint

Cultivate – improve and refine

The fourth ‘C’ is a game changer. The best learning professionals are using data to improve projects and inform future strategy: this guide will show you how.

Tap into data dashboards to identify where your content could be tweaked to improve engagement
Track wider audience trends to inform your digital learning strategy
Balance data about learners with those all-important business KPIs

Download PDF Download PowerPoint

Commercialize – deliver better ROI

The final C is all about making sure your product works for your business. This is key whether you are taking your product to market or simply keen to improve the ROI of digital learning. To deliver the goods, consider:

How to increase the reach of your digital learning products
Design products that will sell
Potential new revenue opportunities
How to increase the value of existing products
How you can streamline workflows to increase speed to market

Download PDF Download PowerPoint

Need a helping hand with your elearning project?

Our Learning Consultancy team offers expert guidance and
hands-on assistance to bolster your team’s capabilities.

Partner with an expert

How to build an elearning dream team

Inês Graça — Wed, 20 Mar 2024 18:19:29 +0000

Introduction

At Elucidat, we’ve worked with hundreds of elearning teams across dozens of sectors, supporting them as they reach tens of millions of learners between them. They all have their own unique challenges, from achieving digital transformation to efficiently producing elearning content at scale in multiple languages and brands.

Regardless of where they are on their journey, one thing the most successful leaders have in common is recognizing their team is the key to success. They’re all looking for exceptional people who can work together effectively. And they’ve identified the best possible processes to efficiently produce elearning that delivers real-life impact.

This guide will reveal the secrets to their success and help you apply these to your team, including:

The essential skills you need in your elearning team and where to find them
Ways to structure elearning teams of different sizes
What your team members need in order to succeed
How to empower and supercharge your team for success

Starting out in the world of digital? Preparing to scale up? Looking for more efficient ways to produce people-centred elearning? Whatever your goal, read on to discover how you can build your own winning elearning dream team.

We hope you find this guide useful and, as always, welcome your feedback.

Kirstie Greany

Learning Consultant, Elucidat

Find the right skills

What are the key components of an exceptional piece of elearning?

Most Learning Managers will have their own nuanced answer to this question, but we likely all agree on the foundational principles. At a minimum, great elearning is:

An engaging and effective learning experience;

Functional and intuitive to use;

Visually eye-catching and appealing;

Created within a reasonable budget and timescale.

An elearning dream team is one that can deliver on these principles every time, and then add their own flair. To be confident that your team can deliver, there are several core skills to look for.

Bear in mind that you don’t necessarily need a specific person to do each of these four core skills. There are plenty of multi-skilled individuals out there. It’s quite common for Graphic Artists to be experts in a particular authoring tool, or for Learning Designers to be able to manage the commercial side of projects.

Creating effective and engaging learning experiences

Effective elearning experiences are most often created by Digital Learning Designers.

They’ll start by investigating what’s needed to improve the desired performance of a target audience, then design a meaningful, engaging solution to help solve that problem. Learning Designers represent the end user throughout the design process. They hone in on what will help and filter out ideas and content that won’t.

Skills to look for

● Needs analysis – they can uncover the root of performance problems via a consultative approach, and recognize what needs to be fixed

● Creative design – they can design learning experiences that bring content to life, creatively, to engage end users

● Learning design – they recognize how to structure and design experiences and content not only engages end users, but actively helps them to improve their performance in the target areas

● Content filtering – they can curate and smartly filter through content to identify what may be useful and what’s not, to support the design and overall project goal

● User-centered – they can put themselves in the shoes of the learning audience and understand what’s needed, so they can create solutions that engage and work for that audience (also see Design Thinking)

● Stakeholder management – they can proactively work with stakeholders and Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to elicit what’s needed to make the project a success, and gain buy-in to the design

● Content review and editing – with a keen eye for detail, Learning Designers carry a project over the line and ensure the quality is up to scratch

Bonus skills

Confident using your elearning authoring platform
Able to use design software, such as wireframing tools

Ensuring the experience is functional and intuitive

It sounds obvious but it’s too often overlooked; your digital learning must work and be easy to use. An Authoring Tool Expert will help you tick those all-important boxes and produce content smartly and quickly.

They’ll be able to take a design that the Learning Designer has come up with and make it a reality in an authoring platform of choice, quickly and effectively. They can also bring their knowledge of authoring tools to the table and work with Learning and Graphic Designers (and others, as needed) to advise on how the learning design ideas can make the most of the features available.

Skills to look for

● In-depth authoring skills – they know a tool inside and out, and can build content and desired design outcomes efficiently and effectively

● Design-oriented – they can offer solutions and input in the design process via their in-depth knowledge of authoring tools

● Business-minded – they can streamline authoring processes and consider how to set up reusable elements and templates to speed up production

● Quality assurance and user experience skills – they know how to design intuitive navigation and user journeys, and are able to QA a finished product

Bonus skills

Experience with elearning platforms and upload processes
Interest in design and learning design
Development skills in your code-base of choice, if you plan to create bespoke content outside of an authoring tool

Working within reasonable time frames, to budget

Project management skills will help you keep your team and your projects on track.

Keeping an elearning production team running on time and on budget is a job in itself. An elearning Project Manager will guide the rest of the team through an efficient production process. They’ll take responsibility for planning and resourcing, budget, schedule and stakeholder management.

Skills to look for

● Coordination of multi-skilled teams – they enable teams to work together smartly and efficiently to meet project goals

● Stakeholder management – they proactively identify and liaise with stakeholders to ensure they are involved and informed, as required, throughout a project lifecycle

● Progress tracking and reporting – they update stakeholders, when it’s needed

● Risk management – they proactively uncover risks and manage them with the team to keep projects on track

● Scheduling – they can create schedules and take ownership of meeting deadlines

● Budget management – they can assess likely budgets, set targets for teams, and take ownership of sticking to target costs

Bonus skills

Experience with authoring and elearning platforms
Some technical knowledge

Don’t forget about your SMEs

Even with these 4 skill sets covered, your team can’t create quality elearning alone. Your SMEs are key to your success. From understanding the context to developing the content, they shape your learning solutions. But their role doesn’t have to end there.

When demand for digital learning is on the rise, many Learning & Development (L&D) teams face a dilemma: steam ahead and risk quality or slow down and not deliver everything. Both strategies have the same result: effective learning isn’t happening at the point that employees need it. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

With an intuitive authoring tool that makes collaboration easy, you can scale up without compromising quality. SMEs are content experts not Learning Designers, Graphic Artists or Project Managers. But with the right tool and your support, you can empower your SMEs to produce high quality elearning. Create templates with best learning practice and consistent branding baked in. Use permissions, review and feedback tools to stay on track. Freeing up you and your team from creating learning content, so you can focus on setting and maintaining standards.

Develop your team’s digital learning skills and strategy

Help your team (and your Subject Matter Experts!) become elearning pros with targeted coaching and consultancy from the Elucidat Learning Consultancy team.

SGS

9,000

Locations

2,600

Employees

L&D Technical Expert

“Partnering with Elucidat experts was the best investment SGS could make. It allowed our team to discover the “Digital Learning Designers” in them. The partnership allowed them to create and deliver with speed and increased their confidence to create the next batch of modules! Thank you Elucidat team.”

Luz Hoyos-Rossier, Global Head of Talent Development at SGS

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Where to find people who could be great in L&D

Many organizations look for people who have done similar roles previously to join their team. Candidates like this bring a lot of valuable experience and are likely to hit the ground running. Keep an eye out for these job titles:

Learning Designer

Scriptwriter, Instructional Designer, Digital Learning Designer, Learning Consultant, Learning Content Designer, Learning Experience Designer

Graphic Designer

Graphic Artist, Visual Designer, Animator, UX Designer, Front-end Designer, Web Designer, Art Director

Authoring Tool Expert

Content Developer, eLearning Developer, eLearning Author, Digital Learning Developer, eLearning Producer, eLearning Tool Expert

Project Manager

Project Coordinator, Producer, Digital Producer, Program Manager, Account Manager

Thinking outside the box

There’s also a real benefit to homegrown talent or fresh ideas from different industries. Gamified Learning was heavily influenced by Game Designers moving into the learning industry. And Learning Campaigns wouldn’t be what they are without Marketing and Communications experts turning their hands to digital learning. So, you may also want to consider looking more broadly for your talent, including the following backgrounds:

Internal experts

Who knows what will be most effective for your employees more than one of your employees? Experts from around your business that want to turn their hand to training others will bring a lot of insight and great internal relationships.

Psychology

Beneficial for understanding how people learn and designing effective “habit changing” experiences

Teaching

Understanding learning best practices in a different context brings a fresh perspective to your team which can help deliver meaningful behaviour change

Marketing

Could bring expertise in writing and storytelling, making content appeal to specific audience groups and developing learning campaigns

UX

Beneficial for on-screen design and creating experiences that are easy to use and effective on different devices

Humanities

Likely to be able to write well, quickly get their head around different subject matters, communicate complex concepts simply and understand different perspectives and viewpoints

Art and Design

Beneficial for branding, creative ways of bringing content to life, visualizing key learning points and supporting written learning with memorable visuals

Structure your elearning team

There are many different ways to structure an elearning team; the one that’s right for you will depend on your situation and your goals.

Consider these factors:

The amount of content you’re aiming to produce. A target of one elearning course per month is very different than a target of three per week. This will have a big impact on the team size you require.

The proportion of your courses that will be built from scratch vs. edited or adapted. If your development model is template based, you’ll require more people who can combine elements and adapt them at speed, and a smaller set designing the template itself.

How innovative you want your courses to be. If you’re shooting for the stars with your elearning, you’re likely to need someone who can confidently set a vision and help a team deliver on it. For example, our vision for successful elearning at Elucidat is People-Centered Elearning.

The skillsets of the people in your team. One Learning Designer’s or Project Manager’s skill set will be different to the next; find a structure that plays to your team’s strengths.

Need to create impactful content at scale?

Opt for an SME-driven dream team

As training needs stack up, we’ve seen some of the world’s leading organizations embracing new ways of working to deliver at speed and scale. Despite working in different industries, these forward-thinking teams use common best practices and processes to open up learning content creation and prioritize their time and resources effectively.

A learning leader sets a vision, then a core team of Learning Designers and Authoring Tool Experts develops a set of reusable templates in an authoring platform that make that vision a reality. They then enable SMEs to work directly in the elearning platform and use the templates provided directly to create content.

Learning leader

Owns the vision, sets the expectations

Learning Designer

Gets how to design for performance

Authoring Tool Expert

Internal tool champ

Subject Matter Experts

Know their subject inside out and can follow a template

Works well for

Scaling up without having to double your team size, empowering those ‘on the ground’ to share their knowledge, producing consistent learning experiences that are true to your vision.

Potential pitfalls

Subject expertise doesn’t equal learning or performance expertise, so this relies on the learning design coming first, and the content creation from experts following.

Top tip: Explore Elucidat’s range of Elucidat’s ready-made templates to speed up your organisation’s template creation. The platform will recommend elearning templates based on your project goals. From branching scenarios to game-like quizzes, there’s a design approach ready to help boost your content creation. You just add content (with best practice tips along the way). Simple as that!

“We don’t have a centralized training function, and we want to empower SMEs to build their own content. With the recent introduction of templates in Elucidat, they find it very easy to design their own engaging content.”
Jo Grantham, Training Lead, Oxfam
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Is working at scale less of a priority?

Let’s explore three other tried and tested team structures:

1. Lean dream team

Graphic Artist and Learning Designer dream team, where both are able to produce content in an elearning platform. An intuitive authoring tool that enables high-end results without the need for coding skills is crucial for this set up.

Learning Designer: Gets how to design for performance
Graphic Designer/media expert : Great with layouts, can produce/curate imagery, videos etc

Works well for

Fast, dedicated, collaborative design – where projects need their own visual and learning design “flavor.” This is a great place for a new digital learning design team to start, or multiple “two-person teams” can be set up to work at higher scale.

Potential pitfalls

Inconsistent designs without a leader setting a vision and potential for siloed thinking – may need new inspiration from outside.

2. Multimedia dream team

A Learning Designer heads up a mini production team involving an Authoring Tool Expert, Graphic Artist and Copywriter.

Copywriting expert: Can add pizzazz to any copy, for a target audience
Learning Designer: Gets how to design for performance
Graphic Designer/media expert: Great with layouts, can produce/curate imagery, videos etc.
Authoring Tool Expert: Internal tool champ

Works well for

Higher scale production and where consistent production standards or design approaches are required. Also good for teams that have strong multimedia skills, but not necessarily experience in “learning.”

Potential pitfalls

A lot rests on the Learning Designer’s shoulders, who has to set up a vision, add input and review all projects.

3. Outsource model

A learning leader commissions a third-party supplier to deliver on their vision, retaining accountability for the vision.

Learning leader: Owns the vision, sets the expectations
Third party supplier

Works well for

Teams that don’t have the skill set or time required to produce the desired project themselves. Bear in mind you don’t have to commission the entire project; instead, you could outsource parts of it. For example, the learning leader could do the concept design in-house, with production commissioned outside. Or, learning design and content could be handled in-house, with graphics and styling commissioned outside.

Potential pitfalls

Can be a more costly and lengthy process, and still requires a lot of input to get the right outcome.

The Elucidat Learning Consultancy team are here to help!

Find out how they can support your content creation needs with their design and build service.

Changing structures over time

As your team develops and your learners’ needs evolve, your team structure may also need to adapt. More L&D teams than ever are feeling the pressure to keep up with the speed and amount of change in their organisations and are moving to a model that empowers SMEs to contribute to elearning creation. Skills are much more important than roles, so be prepared to flex the roles in your team over time to suit the people working with you and help them deliver the outcomes you need.

Empower and supercharge your team

When you’ve got your people and team structure in place, you can focus on making sure your team’s potential is realized into something amazing.

First, there are some essentials:

The tools and technology your team will need in order to execute their creative ideas

Training in digital learning design for anyone new to the role

These basics are sometimes overlooked, but your team could falter early on without them. Carefully assess the authoring tools available to make sure you’ve got the best one for your needs. Then make sure your team are confident with the best practices and processes that will help them succeed as elearning designers and producers. Provide free training with this self-paced Introduction to Elearning Design program that’s open to all.

Here are 6 techniques we’ve seen work effectively:

1. Set a clear vision for elearning in your organization

For your elearning team to be successful, they need to be crystal clear what they’re aiming for. So, take charge. Or recruit an experienced Learning Designer to do it for you! If you’re producing online learning in-house or with third parties, it’s key that you have a clear vision for what “great elearning” looks like.

“We don’t have a centralized training function, and we want to empower SMEs to build their own content. With the recent introduction of templates in Elucidat, they find it very easy to design their own engaging content.”
Jo Grantham, Training Lead, Oxfam
Read story

Create a manifesto that everyone commits to. The starting points for this? Your end users and your analytics. Dig into data about what’s worked well, what hasn’t and why. Pair this with some user surveys and interviews and focus on what helps boost performance: digital or not. Take what you learn and set out a clear vision for elearning in your business.

Our Learning Consultancy team can guide you through this process in an interactive workshop.

Get practical:

Provide best practice examples of elearning based on your findings. From the top end bespoke “experiential” designs to the reusable single page performance support resources, create inspirational prototypes of each. Enable your team to view, reuse, and adapt these models.

Link these examples to user profiles and situations of “need” so it’s clear when and where they should be used.

2. Empower your team to truly represent end users

Teams that create people-centered elearning embody their end users and represent them and their needs throughout the entire process. If you are an in-house learning team, your customers are your learners. This is where your #1 focus needs to be.

Learn more about what the modern learner wants or get all the latest insights on our State of Digital Learning Report 2024.

“Think about how you can advocate for your learners. Ask why is this useful? What’s the purpose we serve by introducing this, by using this data, by buying this LMS, by implementing this program. I really think that we have an opportunity to influence in a broader way…and from a learner centric perspective.”

Leading with purpose through thoughtful L&D
Stella Lee, founder of Paradox Learning

However, you configure your team, empower them to talk with and involve end users, monitor learning analytics and get up close to user needs. If an SME or business manager is standing in the way, then make the case for why connecting designers to end users and goals make sense.

Get practical:

Equip your team with templates and guides that can act as the playbook for how they plan, design, create and improve content. You can try our free ready-made template to capture audience and project needs to save you time.

Provide a set of ready-made user profiles, or personas, that can be used as a starting point for your team.

3. Make data analysis part and parcel of core roles

It’s all too easy for us to assume that we’ve understood our audience correctly; but the proof is in the engagement data. Currently, less than 10% of Learning Designers make data-based changes after an elearning project has gone live, missing valuable opportunities to increase the impact a course has.

Arm your team with analytics feeds for their projects so they can monitor what’s working and what’s not and make tweaks to increase the project’s engagement and reach. Make it part of their role that they should make changes beyond launch. Ask them to report back on how it’s doing. At a macro level, ensure your learning leaders and managers are looking at data feeds across projects.

“When it comes to measuring the impact of training, [it’s about] being able to get a good signal of the extent to which learning has influenced behavior, actions, habits, performance, and business outcomes…The data, evidence or facts show that this happened, not just because of training, but because training was part of an overall strategy.”
Using L&D detection to find measures that show purposeful impact
Kevin M. Yates, L&D Detective

Get practical:

Provide access to learning analytics dashboards so everyone can track and improve their project’s success.

Review macro-level data as a team regularly so you know what times of day are the hottest usage times, which devices are most used, in which locations content is working and which formats of elearning are most popular. Ultimately, are you meeting your vision?

Include a simple user-rating survey in every piece of content. Pop in a quick, re-usable, “was this useful?” survey at the end of each piece of elearning content and have your team monitor results. It will give them a quick snapshot of what’s working well.

4. Get your elearning team thinking commercially – even if the content’s not for sale

Thinking commercially about elearning production, even if it’s not for sale, helps everyone focus on value. We find it drives better design results and smarter working as a result. If you have department leads commissioning elearning projects for your team to do, take a consultative lead. Is it business critical? Who’s it for? What’s its shelf-life? What’s the real problem it’s trying to fix? Are you sure a course is the right fit?

“We’ve been spending about £40 billion a year on L&D since 2000. It’s a big number. Globally, the estimated year-on-year is about half a trillion. But productivity has remained the same. So, either we’re wasting money on the wrong things, we haven’t developed the right skills or capability, or we’ve not really understood where we need to put those investments.”

Tackling flatlining business productivity with future focused L&D
Simon Gibson, Group Head of Learning & Development at Marks and Spencer

Get practical:

Have ready-made investment models. Sometimes you have to talk money, particularly if you feel project commissioners are asking for the moon on a stick (when, in fact, just the stick would be fit for purpose). Create some ready-made financial models that show on average how long and how much it takes to produce different kinds of outcomes. But don’t think of it like window shopping! This isn’t to say you let them choose which “model” of elearning they like. You are the expert!

Set targets for your team so they know how many budgeted days there are to spend on the project, and target media spend. Keeping track of time input means you have something to compare with measured output – helping you with the classic Return On Investment (ROI) evaluation.

5. Support smarter working – reuse, recycle, recoup

One powerful way to develop elearning content with a commercial hat on is to think about ways you can reuse existing content. Step back and assess how to avoid your team starting from scratch every time, saving them loads of time.

Can you re-use global styles, layouts, pages, menus, even whole topics? For example, swapping out the videos in a branching scenario means users get a new learning experience, with a consistent interface, in half the time.

Get practical:

Have ready-made investment models. Sometimes you have to talk money, particularly if you feel project commissioners are asking for the moon on a stick (when, in fact, just the stick would be fit for purpose). Create some ready-made financial models that show on average how long and how much it takes to produce different kinds of outcomes. But don’t think of it like window shopping! This isn’t to say you let them choose which “model” of elearning they like. You are the expert!

Set targets for your team so they know how many budgeted days there are to spend on the project, and target media spend. Keeping track of time input means you have something to compare with measured output – helping you with the classic Return On Investment (ROI) evaluation.

“Our biggest consumer in terms of elearning is the Sports department. Our team members must be able to find everything they need to sell the products season after season. Skills leaders create the content, and field and product experts review the courses to ensure their quality. Our courses are created in France where the sports team is based. Other countries are then able to duplicate, translate and adapt to their local practices if needed.”

Sophie Vanhems, Skill Leader, Decathlon
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Elucidat features to help your team work smarter, not harder

Create templated projects or page layouts for your team to use as a base for different projects
Create a brand style once, then apply it to multiple courses with one click
Upload approved images to your asset library, so your team can choose from them easily
Use parent courses to create and maintain versions easily
Collaborate with stakeholders using the Review feature for speedy testing and refinement

6. Foster a community for efficiency and invigoration

Last, but not least, build a sense of community and sharing within your team to encourage fresh ideas and collaboration.

Teams that work together create greater results, faster. Encourage sharing, peer reviews, joint brainstorming, project re-use, and inspiration sessions via a community of practice. Don’t let your team’s ideas get siloed or stale! For big teams, consider an online community portal or forum.

Get practical:

Set up a community of practice for sharing, reviewing, seeking answers, and sharing data insights.

Include a simple user-rating survey in every piece of content. Pop in a quick, re-usable, “was this useful?” survey at the end of each piece of elearning content and have your team monitor results. It will give them a quick snapshot of what’s working well.

Want to find out more?

Get some insider tips on how to set up successful ways of working from L&D leaders at Aviva, nCino, Coca-Cola and D&G.

Read the blog

Power up your dream team

With a clear vision, the right tools, and the perfect combination of skill sets, you can create a winning elearning dream team that works efficiently and effectively at scale.

A smarter approach to producing innovative elearning at scale

Get your team on-brand and on-time. Elucidat is the go-to elearning authoring platform for delivering impactful elearning experiences at scale among the world’s leading companies.

As well as the latest in authoring tool features, you’ll benefit from:

A library of expert-designed elearning templates to help you create training 4 x faster
Advanced user permissions to support how your dream team works
Brand control and asset management
Built-in learning analytics
Built-in translation process

Authoring Tool Comparison Template

Book a demo

Already an Elucidat customer?

Speak to our Learning Consultancy team to explore how they can help you create your own dream team.

Learn more

The Learning at Large Podcast

Elearning best practice: The ultimate design guide

Elearning best practice

The ultimate guide to designing the best elearning online courses

Introduction

What is elearning best practice?

How frequently are employees engaging with elearning courses?

What do you know about modern learner needs?

3 key insights on the modern learning experience

Insight #1: Time is squeezed

Insight #2: Learning can misalign

Insight #3: Room for improvement

How to design a successful elearning course

Here are 4 key principles for impactful digital learning

1. Make it relevant

Solutions that overtly meet the specific performance needs of individuals in their context

Taking a one-size-fits-all or a “top down” approach to learning

How do you achieve this?

Start with clear learning objectives and user profiles:

Speak to them:

Include examples:

Provide role or skill specific content:

Localize your content:

2. Get truly interactive

Content and experiences that connect with audiences and motivate them to do something

Online manuals, technical jargon, passive experiences, indirect communications, click-through content

How do you achieve this?

Create participation:

Tell stories:

Make endings the beginning:

3. Keep it concise

Uses people’s time wisely, makes learning no longer than it needs to be

A splatter gun of disconnected pieces; just “info” without any support

How do you achieve this?

Less is always more:

Use a direct, active voice:

Make it scannable:

Get visual:

Spaced repetition of practice:

3. Ensure it’s easy to access

Content that’s easy to find and use when people want it, wherever they are

Content that’s hidden in long courses, behind complex menus or systems, with obscure names

How do you achieve this?

Make it micro-learning:

Give choices:

Enable on-the-job learning:

Get certified

5 best practice approaches for elearning design to inspire you

1. Microlearning and on-the-job resources

On-the-job resources

Structured microlearning journeys

Microlearning is a great approach for:

Microlearning design top tips

Be the answer to a specific problem:

Create clusters:

Create spaced practice:

Keep track:

Remember your learning design principles:

2. Gamification

Gamified scenarios

Gamification is a great approach for:

Gamification in elearning: design top tips

Start small, but don’t cut corners:

Prioritize the learning, not the game:

Develop a hierarchy of points:

Be clear on criteria and progression:

Ramp up the challenge gradually:

Don’t disregard individual competition:

3. Interactive multimedia and content

Digital storytelling

Storytelling in elearning is a good approach for:

Storytelling design top tips

Find the human side of your content:

Show, don’t tell:

Provide multiple perspectives:

Not sure why stories and learning are a winning combination?

Scenario-based video learning

Video in elearning is a good approach for:

Video-based elearning design top tips

Don’t splash the cash unless you really need to:

Solutions that overtly meet the
specific performance needs of individuals
in their context

Taking a one-size-fits-all or a
“top down” approach
to learning

Check out more advice in this micro guide to using
audio and video in elearning.

Want to find out more ways to support your SMEs?
Check out our guide to setting SMEs up for success.

With 60% of employees rating their elearning fair to poor,
it’s time to give them learning experiences to talk about.

Best practices for managing multi-language
learning content efficiently