Five Considerations When Designing Engaging eLearning Courses

The term engagement has been a bit overused, but what itreally refers to is emotional involvement or commitment. It has been welldocumented that in eLearning, and learning in general, higher engagementproduces higher retention rates, which translate to better performance results.In the end, it is all about results, and engagement is a well-paved pathway tobetter results.

A major reason that serious games and gamificationtechniques are so popular across industries is that they are designed to obtainemotional involvement from users. Apart from good game mechanics and dynamics,there are some common design techniques employed by game designers that are alsoapplicable to eLearning course designers.

Whether a game is meant for a learning context or strictlyfor entertainment, elements such as a compelling storyline, interesting contentdelivery, and immersive aesthetics make for an engaging experience. Since weare not all masters of programming, and regularly face budgets smaller than apygmy shrew, we are often confined to the tools of the trade and driven to findfinancially creative solutions.

Crafting the content

The most important aspect in vying for the emotionalattachment of the learner is the manner in which you deliver the content. Stories,creative content delivery, and immersive backgrounds are three ways to makesure you are presenting the content in the most effective way possible.

Tell a story

An interesting and captivating story is the absolute bestway to get people emotionally invested in anything. Since the content is fixed,and the story is fluid, it is always best to shape the story around thecontent, rather than coming in with a storyline and trying to make the contentflow around it. When looking to craft an effective story or theme for yourcourse, here are two ways to get the creative juices flowing.

• Start by identifying the running themes and“story” of the content. Is the learning centered on a product, a process, or askill? For example, if your content revolves around a product—say a vacuum cleaner—askyourself how do people interact with that product? What would people love aboutit, what annoys them about it? With less tangible content, such as withprocesses or skills, read through your content materials thoroughly, talk to yourSME’s, even ask your kids. Try to identify the stand-out and recurring learningthemes.
• Next, think of an obstacle related to the key learningthemes. With the vacuum cleaner, wouldn’t it suck (pun intended) if itdeveloped sentience and decided to run amok in the owner’s house? Wouldn’t it begreat if a hero (our learner) might rescue the distressed cat from the clutchesof the evil vacuum, and if we learned more about the product to the point wecould disable and reprogram it for the good of all house kind?

I firmly believe that there isn’t a product, process, skill,or any type of learning for which you cannot create a story.

Make a list

A bulleted list can be an effective way to presentinformation, but like many content delivery strategies, it is most effectivewhen used sparingly, and for the proper applications. To help keep the bulletpoints from taking over the course, here are some suggestions I employ myself.

• Look at other ways to present sequentialinformation—use charts, diagrams, shapes, and arrows with text. This will helpkeep the eye awake—especially if the charts and diagrams are interactive.
• Ensure that you time the information presentedto not appear all at once; time it to appear with your voiceover segments (ifyou use VO) or, at the very least, space the timing accordingly to allow thelearner to absorb key bite-sized points.
• Think visually when your content is text-heavy.Look for key learning take-aways that you can better express with images,shapes, video, and audio.
• Finally, if you simply cannot get away fromusing bullet points, provide some visual flare and variety by adding subtle(i.e., not flying in and zooming around like a demented wasp) entrance and/orexit visual effects. A well-timed text animation can make all the differencewhen time and budget do not allow for more comprehensive design.

Aesthetics

Many games are heavily dependent on aesthetics, and theirdevelopers have mastered the art of immersing the user by using the correct graphics.An important consideration when designing backgrounds is to remember that youneed to achieve a balance between using interesting design, and distracting thelearner. I like to think of backgrounds as the vehicle for the content. Thevehicle must get the learner from point A to point B, but must not be toodistracting. You don’t want to encourage the learner to look out of the carwindow all day long.

Try to tie in the background art with the story and thecontent. On a recent project, the story called for a time-travelling elevator—differenteras represented different lessons. In one case, the 1960s, bright (but not overpowering)psychedelic backgrounds were used with appropriate fonts and images. This couldwell have turned into a visual disaster, but we maintained subtlety and synergywith the subject matter. Well thought-out backgrounds provide the best canvasfor the art that we call course content.

Tools of the trade

There are several course authoring tools, each with its ownmerits and drawbacks. In our case, Adobe Captivate 8 has been the tool ofchoice, and there are some creative ways that you can use this tool, both byusing off-the-shelf functionality, and by incorporating third-party widgets forexpanded capabilities.

Right out of the box, many eLearning content-authoring toolsoffer efficient methods for content creation. In both Captivate and Storyline,one can import PowerPoint presentations and output a basic eLearning course inminutes. But, as I’m sure many instructional designers will agree, if you wantto engage your audience you have to move rapidly beyond the basics.

Luckily, out of the box, Captivate 8 comes with quite a fewextras. The ability to add pre-built interactions such as charts, animations,and mini-games all add to the user feeling more “active” within the course. Presentingknowledge in a non-repetitive manner is paramount to keeping the audienceengaged. Clickable flow charts and diagrams, for example, are easy to createand allow for optimal knowledge transfer; while you can use the pre-builtmini-games wisely (albeit sparingly) to reinforce key learning points.

In addition, Captivate has advanced functionality thatincludes toying with variables and chaining advanced actions together. For ourlatest project, we utilized a variety of third-party widgets (courtesy of www.infosemantics.com.au)that allowed us to create unique custom user interactions. At the end of the day,it’s true we can seem limited by the tools we use, but there are ways and meansto squeeze every ounce of eLearning goodness out.

Budget and time restrictions

Budget and time restrictions are something most everyone canrelate to. If you don’t have time to design your own graphical elements, use authoring-tool-providedassets and sign up for low-cost royalty-free images and animation services. Thegood thing about using stock or authoring-tool-provided assets is that you canstill animate them within your authoring tool to provide visual stimulation. Ihave also found that, as you build up your own course catalogue, you arebuilding up your own repository for multimedia—a great boon for saving time andbudget down the road. More specifically with time restrictions, make use ofmaster slides and templates to ensure you do not have to create a uniqueinteraction for every slide. Sometimes you can simply reverse an image, flipthe background, or change the entrance and exit animations in order toreinforce new information. I recommend, in the conceptual stages of the coursedesign and once the story or theme is decided upon, that you create five or sixunique slide sets that can convey key learning objectives AND that you caneasily repurpose with minor tweaks to the assets.

Gamification

By using elements such as points, badges, and leaderboards, yougive the user immediate feedback, which provides extrinsic motivation. Within acourse, interactions and mini-games help to keep the user wanting to get to thenext slide and “win.” Captivate 8 comes with a decent drag and drop widget thatyou can use as a pseudo-gamified interaction in conjunction with images, sounds,and video. Completion of any mini-game or interaction should reward the userwith an achievement. This can be as simple as a congratulatory text, or abadge, a video message, or even by allowing the user to branch to differentareas of the course—collect your $200 and do not go to jail!