10 Golden Rules for ELearning Design

By: Justin Ferriman • October 1, 2013
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10-imageToo often today you will find organizations hastily slap-together a bunch of PowerPoint slides, upload them into a program like Articulate, click “publish” and call it “elearning”.

The reality is that this type of elearning development is just flat-out ineffective. Any instructional designer will tell you that in order to create effective training, there are certain design principles and models that should be leveraged.

Depending on who you speak to, you will likely hear a variety of tips and advice for how to create effective elearning courses. The list below, originally shared by CommLab, are a “golden rules” for elearning development.

For some of you, these might just be a reminder… but a little refresher never hurt anyone.

10 Golden Rules for ELearning Design

1. Start Strong: Make it a point to have a very memorable, solid beginning to your course using case studies, videos, testimonials, or statistics.

2. Set SMART Objectives: The objectives of your elearning should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound.

3. Remember Learning Styles: Present information in a variety of ways to appeal to the various learning styles.

4. Include Instructions: Navigating an elearning course shouldn’t be a mystery, always include instructions so users don’t get stuck.

5. Use First-Person: Write the content so that it uses a first-person voice.

6. Assessments Matter: Always include some form of assessment, but not just on memorizing. Also include questions to assess business context.

7. Avoid Distraction: Don’t overdue the graphics, sometimes simple text is enough to drive home a point. Stick with a standard color-scheme.

8. Include Exercises: Engage your learners by including exercises to split-up the content.

9. Pay Attention to Course Flow: Your courses should follow a logical progression and navigational pattern so as to avoid confusion.

10. Break-up Content: Don’t overload a screen with too much text or too many graphics. Breaking-up content into smaller chunks will allow for better learning retention.

Justin Ferriman

Justin started LearnDash, the WordPress LMS trusted by Fortune 500 companies, major universities, training organizations, and entrepreneurs worldwide. He is currently founder & CEO of GapScout. Justin’s Homepage | GapScout | Twitter