How To Use The Right eLearning Authoring Tool For Cost-Effective Learning
Speed and the ability to react quickly to changing business conditions are 2 of the major challenges organizations are facing in a competitive, fast-moving business world. Opportunities for learning are also a strong driver for employee engagement and a positive workplace culture. With this in mind, an eLearning authoring tool has a huge part to play in enabling collaboration and knowledge sharing across your business, as well as saving you time and money.
Let’s take a look at how the right authoring tool encourages collaboration and knowledge sharing alongside efficiency savings.
Ease Of Use Saves Time And Money
In the past, the limitations of eLearning authoring tools often curtailed creative learning design.
But if you want to create highly interactive courses with rich multimedia, the leading authoring tools give you the flexibility and functionality to achieve that in style. With gomo, you don’t have to be an expert: our clients have mastered the skills to create eye-catching courses within a week. The resulting course would have cost the company thousands of pounds to commission externally, giving them a cost saving on their investment in gomo after their very first project.
Read on to discover the 5 keys to creating cost-effective learning solutions:
1. An Intuitive Interface: Taking The Struggle Out Of Authoring
Any eLearning authoring tool needs to be designed in an intuitive, user-friendly way so that users can navigate to the functionality they need quickly and easily, and not get lost. You should be able to find key functions in one menu, guiding you smoothly through all the on-screen elements, and making it easy to find all the tools and information you need.
Obviously, we think gomo is incredibly intuitive and easy to use. But it’s not just our opinion! Based on a review of 190 authoring tools, gomo was identified by the industry expert, Craig Weiss, as one of the top 5 authoring tools in the world. Our tool comes with a range of new features and improvements to take the pain and hassle out of the creation and distribution of cloud-based, multi-device eLearning content.
Remember, less can be more when it comes to text on the screen.
Don’t choose an authoring tool that distracts you from elements you’re unlikely to use. Keep it simple. An uncrowded User Interface allows ideas to flow. Less distraction increases efficiency, which then means you can create more content in less time. Less time usually equates to cost-effective learning that’s "within budget".
And that can be what differentiates you from your competitors.
2. Responsive And Adaptive Content Ensures Sleek Layouts
In the old days of eLearning design, you had to create a different version of a course for every device. Building a single course that would look great on any device was the dream of every Instructional Designer. Today, the best authoring tools automatically do this for you.
For a desktop PC or tablet, content can be created to appear in a 2, 3, or 4-column layout. However, when the same content is viewed on a smartphone, the device does not have enough space available to show 3 columns, so responsive content automatically adapts for display in the most effective way possible. This is fluid, flexible design—it seeks to create an optimized experience for any screen by responding to the size of the browser.
Adaptive content, by contrast, is less fluid but still incredibly important. It adjusts by adapting to the width of the browser at specific points. It will wait until the browser has reached a certain width, then selects the most appropriate layout for the screen.
Responsive and adaptive content provides learners with an ideal aesthetic experience, but the adaptive design allows for more precise control. This is because it can be individually designed for a set of specific screen widths. Although they work in different ways, adaptive and responsive design ultimately provide visitors with a seamless learning experience.
Everything we produce at gomo is both responsive and adaptive, to provide the best User Experience (UX) possible while maintaining the quality of the content. This means that we can build content once and publish it across multiple devices including desktops, laptops, tablets, and smartphones.
3. The Value Of Using The Cloud
On gomo’s blog, I quoted learning designer, Laura Estrella Bowyer, at LEO Learning, who believes that the 2 most important elements of successful eLearning material are a good authoring tool and internet access.
Cloud-based eLearning solutions—usually offered as Software as a Service (SaaS)—mean you don't have to install anything on the system physically. All you need to access the tool is a reliable internet connection.
More and more eLearning tools are migrating to the cloud. The reasons behind this include:
- The ability for developers to easily access content authoring via a secure hosted system
- A greatly reduced need for IT configurations, software set-ups, and licenses
- The potential to work remotely and collaboratively as a team
- Reduced costs
- A central location for all resources, content, and assets
- Updates and maintenance delivered by the service provider
gomo is a cloud-based eLearning authoring tool, and features online access and storage, allowing for safe backup and maintenance of course content remotely, rather than locally. Because it’s in the cloud, gomo allows content creation teams to collaborate from different locations. You can create, edit, update and distribute eLearning courses from anywhere in the world. This means travel costs and time demands are greatly reduced or even disappear entirely. With the cloud, everything is ready to be updated at the touch of a few buttons.
gomo’s packages come with both developing and built-in hosting capabilities. There’s no need to hire professionals to carry out an installation and set-up. The cloud makes collaboration in course creation easy, with just a simple login required.
4. Simple And Rich Design Leads To More Resonant Messaging
Simple and rich content authoring functionality helps you to deliver more powerful messages and create highly interactive screens without needing any programming skills.
Display conditions allow authors to easily create device-specific content. For example, a detailed graphic on a desktop or tablet display might not be usable on a smartphone screen. You can now replace that graphic with a simplified version that works for the smaller screen ‘real estate’ on the smartphone.
When it comes to designing cost-effective learning solutions, having an elegant yet uncluttered navigation is vital. It’s all about finding the sweet spot: too many bells and whistles and your learners won’t know where to click next; too few and they’ll lose interest. Creating highly interactive screens with gomo—whether that’s with an intuitive continuous scroll or clickable navigation buttons—is simplicity itself.
Not an experienced developer?
Not a problem.
If you can use a web browser, you can use gomo. Choose a pre-configured screen template, and gomo will create the layout and add all of the items needed for the chosen screen type. Just drop in your content and hit the publish button!
5. Avoid Complicated Coding
Most eLearning designers would agree that coding is best left to programmers and developers. For true time-saving efficiency, you want to create content with just a few clicks. The good news is that gomo doesn’t require developers: your team can concentrate on the Instructional Design and publish courses quickly and easily. With gomo you’re up and running in minutes—just log in through your web browser on any machine and start working. Technical support is provided by gomo as a part of your subscription, and the team is on hand to assist you with any queries. The latest gomo update is always available for customers at no extra charge, via the cloud.
A Game-Changing Tool For Your Business
We all know that great teamwork and delivering content on a global scale requires imaginative new ways of operating. gomo’s design and set-up help you achieve that, which is why it’s been recognized as the number one authoring tool in the world.
So, whether it’s truly responsive and adaptive design, an intuitive User Interface, or the incredible time- and money-saving power of the cloud, there are many cost-effective learning advantages to be gained from gomo.
If you want to learn more about choosing the right authoring tool to create cost-effective training solutions, download the eBook 8 Things Every Great Authoring Tool Should Have. It's free!