How Visual Design Can Impact eLearning Courses
It is always important to know about the basics of visual elements while creating an eLearning course. As a designer, you need to understand those little things that can make an impact on readers’ eyes. This is why the designing job of every eLearning course is quite hard and must be done carefully, keeping a few things in mind.
A best practice to consider when designing an eLearning course is to think from a user’s perspective. This can help you learn about the elements that can attract a user. A lot of times, designers do not consider this factor and commit glaring mistakes in their visual design.
In this article, we’ll define some key mistakes every designer should avoid while creating an eLearning course. Knowing them in advance will help you create a design that will attract eyes and engage the masses in your eLearning course.
Let’s first understand the importance of a good visual design for an eLearning course.
Why You Need An Engaging Design For eLearning Courses
Everything that is associated with the digital medium requires creative design. eLearning courses have become popular due to this very reason. It has changed the conventional way of reading materials with interactive usage of graphical elements.
As a result, it has increased the reader’s attention toward a particular material. From infographics to charts, there are various things that help a reader understand things better. This is called the impact of graphical elements in the learning materials.
It helps you to describe different stuff in a more engaging and smart manner. That is the core reason why using an engaging visual design is recommended for the eLearning courses. It helps develop the readers’ interest no matter how long or complicated a course is.
Common Designing Mistakes To Avoid In eLearning Courses
Here are some of the common design mistakes people usually commit while creating an eLearning course:
Less Consideration Of Design Impact
We all know very well that graphical illustration is the art of telling stories. Whether it is a logo or a banner, everything demonstrates a particular message to viewers. This theory applies to all types of graphical elements. For instance, if we consider the example of NFL logos, we can understand how teams want to showcase their identities via bold logos. This can be termed as a perfect demonstration of impact by using particular designs.
Unfortunately, many people often neglect this factor while creating eLearning courses. Their designs do not communicate anything to the users, making them less interesting and boring to look at. These types of courses do not perform well and simply lose people’s interest at the first glance. So, if you want to grab the readers’ attention, try to create impactful designs that can communicate strongly with the people and the content of the course.
Not Understanding The Unity Factor
It is important to understand how to create unity between the design and the content of the course. Many designers often fail to keep this factor in mind and randomly create a design that has no connection with the core idea of the subject. As a result, both of these things look unrelated and they create no value for the readers.
Being a designer, you first need to understand how to build consistency in each design element of the course. This creates uniformity and helps the people properly recognize the information given in the material. It allows them to understand what the whole design structure is all about and what key points it will deliver.
Having this type of design complements the learning experience and engages more eyeballs in the course. It is therefore said to create a consistent and clean design for eLearning courses precisely by considering the relevant users’ interests.
Poor Design Choices
Sometimes, the choice of poor design also brings adverse effects on eLearning courses. Being a designer, you need to know the difference between bad and great designs. You can take a look at other courses; how they are designed and what specifics they are using. This can help you decide the theme and style needed for your course.
Meanwhile, it is also important to pick designs based on the category of your course. For instance, if your eLearning course is related to IT skills, try to use a specific design theme according to that. Similarly, this practice will also apply to the other fields that are related to your course. It will help you to pick the best designs according to the latest trends and target audience.
Wrong Contrast Usage
One of the core principles of graphic design is to properly use the contrast between different elements. This is a very important factor every designer should keep in mind, especially when working with eLearning courses. A lot of times, designers do not pay attention to how to use the contrast between different sections. This makes everything look cluttered and does not help the readers understand key points.
To avoid this mess, you need to master the art of using contrast on the slides or eLearning pages. You can easily do this by using different font sizes, shapes of elements, object placement, and other relevant tricks. However, make sure to keep your core design theme intact while incorporating contrast between the sections. It could be a bit tricky job, which is why it should be done smartly, keeping all the important things in mind.
Incorrect Font Usage
Using incorrect fonts in various types of graphic design is a common problem among designers. Many times, people pick the wrong font type for the relevant images, infographics, and other materials. This makes the whole course content look poor despite having the right knowledge and points.
The font for the course material should be chosen keeping in view the overall theme. As a designer, you need to analyze what typeface will best suit your design. You can take ideas about different font styles and sizes by looking into the design specifics of other eLearning courses. This will give you a good understanding of their usage in different cases.
Meanwhile, also remember to learn about the right coloring of the fonts. It is equally important to make any typography attractive and creative. This should also be done by keeping in view the overall theme of your design, giving every element a unified look.
Final Words
With the advancement of digital technologies, the spectrum of eLearning is growing day by day in the world. Those companies that offer eLearning courses can take a lot from this trend, provided they do not commit silly mistakes in their visual design.
In this article, we have described some of the common mistakes usually found in the visual design of eLearning courses. These mistakes often become very evident and affect the overall presentation of the course. It is therefore advised to spot and rectify them in the first place precisely by using some key practices. Being a designer, these tips will help you make your designs better and attract more passionate learners to the course.
