Top 5 Tips To Engage Your Learners Without Annoying Them
- Make it look good
People are attracted to visually appealing things, like spectacular art, new shoes or your e-Learning course—hopefully. Since people judge appearances first, you’ll want to be sure your course’s first impression is a good one. If your e-Learning course is unappealing, your learners definitely won’t want to spend their time staring at your course. To keep your learners engaged, don’t make the graphics look like you’re bringing back the 90s. Always use an attractive design that’s up-to-date and professional. - Don’t add crazy clutter
Resist the temptation to include tons of images and graphics in your e-Learning course. Images are only engaging if they support your content, so use them sparingly. Each image should have a clear purpose. Don’t add images just because you think they’re funny or clever or cute. This can be distracting to your learners and also wastes their time. Make sure that any images or videos you do include load quickly. People are impatient, and they’ll be annoyed if they have to wait around. - Don’t surprise your learners with quiz limits
Many learners will keep clicking next to get to the end of your e-Learning course faster. They figure that by guessing and retaking the quiz a few times, they’ll eventually pass without actually learning any information. One way to prevent this is by limiting the number of attempts for a quiz, but tell your learners ahead of time. If they skip through to the end and then find out they’re going to fail the quiz because they can only take it once, they’ll be irritated and won’t have learned anything. Warn your learners at the beginning of the course, so they stay engaged and actually learn the content. - Use interactivity to your advantage
Like images, interactivity can engage your learners if you use it correctly. Always keep the interactivity relevant to your e-Learning course goals and objectives. When you’re using interactivity to help learners understand or remember important information, you’re providing a valuable experience in your e-Learning course. Learners will get annoyed quickly if they have to waste time playing endless irrelevant games. Be selective with interactivity. - Don’t worry about being fun
Your learners aren’t expecting to come to work and have a blast. But they do expect to gain something, be engaged and be challenged by your e-Learning course. Too often developers go overboard trying to make their e-Learning courses fun. Unfortunately, this can be obvious and obnoxious to learners, especially if it’s at the expense of engaging and valuable content. In addition, your learners may not agree with you on what’s considered fun, so don’t make that the priority in your e-Learning course.
An authoring tool like Lectora V11 e-Learning software can help you easily develop an engaging and valuable e-Learning course. For some ideas and inspiration, check out these sample e-Learning courses in Lectora University.
As you’re creating your next e-Learning course, keep these tips in mind to avoid annoying your learners and to provide an incredible, engaging learning experience.
