4 eLearning Design Challenges and Solutions

High-skilled designers need to be knowledgeable and very creative in their field of work. They are constantly required to meet demanding expectations from their client in order to deliver the best experience to their end customers. This blog will cue you in on five common design challenges and ways to fix them.

1. Meeting crazy client demands:
   It is imperative that your clients will always want you to provide them with the best results. They could send you a 6 slides PPT or a 100 slides. Your job would be to compile all of that into an interactive layout for your customers. The best way to interpret your clients task it to curate your content by articulating a storyline, which includes interactive graphics and clickable elements. This will make the overall experience for your learners less daunting.

2. Designing for modern learners:
   In a recent study conducted by Microsoft, it is confirmed that readers have a short span of attention. They will spend a maximum of 8 seconds on a topic. Your challenge as a designer is to create a customized learning experience for them. You need to make the content very specific. You can answer the most commonly asked questions by learners “What is in it for me? (WIFM)”. The point here is to engage the learner, but make sure you use good design techniques with the help of immersive learning.

3. Mastering the art of communication:
   Your design model must have the power to visually and verbally speak with your audience. Too much design elements are not encouraged in order to create a perfect eLearning course. You must keep these points in mind:
   • Keep one font style for the heading and sub-headings and another style for the body content.
   • Avoid toggling between different slide layouts. Choose the best suitable one and stick to it.
   • Use a minimum of 2-3 font colors of the same gradient.
   • Symbols are a great way to distinguish between content. (E.g. a question mark icon to indicate a discussion)

4. Encourage the learner to slow down:
   Say you have a flow chart to insert and you simply copy-paste it in your design, learners would most likely skip the page. You could add interactive layouts with a clickable option for each box explaining them in detail. You could use the same technique for other content-heavy materials such as case studies, quizzes or scenarios. The key is to draw the learner’s attention and make them want to take a closer look.

Now that you are aware of the common challenges, you must not forget to keep learning new things always during this process. Constant expansion of knowledge is the sign of a healthy and competitive designer. You can never “know enough” in this field of learning. Whether you are a degree holder or not, you would always want to strive to read and know more in order to constantly challenge yourself to do more. A true passion for learning is the key to becoming a great instructional designer.