The internet has massively grown in the last decade. We started shopping, communicating, working, and doing much more using the internet. However, it was the Covid-19 pandemic that changed the education industry.
Companies embraced the online trend and created LOTS of different elearning platforms, causing colossal competition. This article will tell you about our approach to elearning platform design.
The Ergonomic Behind Awesome Website Designs
The internet is a highly competitive field, and elearning platforms are not an exception. To stay popular and profitable, you need to implement the latest tips and tricks of earning design. Nonetheless, there are some fundamentals that will remain mostly unchanged for a long time.
The primary purpose of elearning platform ergonomics is to ensure the best user experience. The users will not spend money on a platform with bad ergonomics and user experience.
Having these factors in mind, we want to share our process of integrating ergonomics into elearning designs.
The Users Are the Most Important Part of Your Platform
It is essential to understand that different people will have different needs for elearning design. The need drastically changes depending on your potential clients’ age, profession, and goal. A middle IT specialist who uses the platform to enhance their skills will have different design needs from a high schooler. Thus, it is extremely important for you to understand the audience and use your insight during the elearning design process.
There are two primary groups of online learners that you will encounter on the internet:
- Generic learners. These people are buying courses to learn skills independently during their leisure time. The learning schedule they choose on their own allows them to get important information without the traditional restrictions.
- Learners with set goals. These are students or employees that use the elearning platforms for education and workplace training. This type of learners will appreciate group learning sessions with synchronous learning.
Both groups have certain needs that you will have to consider during the elearning platform design.
Ensure That the Users Have a Great Experience
Having a clear image of the user’s needs and desires in advance will help you build your elearning platform. Having cohesive ergonomics on your platform is the key. It will be best to ensure that your users can make easy decisions without experiencing stress.
Here are several hints and tips that will help you during the custom elearning design process.
Hick’s Law
Hick’s law is a rather interesting psychological phenomenon. Psychologists found a correlation between the number of available choices and the time it takes to decide. During the research, William Edmund Hick and Ray Hyman found out that people find it hard to choose something if options are abundant.
Needless to say, it is essential to consider this during the elearning design process. You need to show your users the courses they will be interested in without overwhelming them. Having too many products to choose from will scare the potential customer away.
We recommend creating a system that will filter the courses according to the user’s preferences. Having a list of suggestions will help the potential customer choose the product that will serve them the best. Besides that, we recommend adding a search engine so your users could find courses on their own.
Negative Space
Remember the times during your high school or college exams? We don’t know about you, but we found it rather stressful. Consequently, we encourage you to leave some space between various design elements. Having that room will keep the users from being overwhelmed when studying new things.
Apart from avoiding burnout, leaving some breathing room improves the quality of the education. Consequently, it makes the customers happier and increases the likelihood that they will buy another course.
The Von Restorff Effect
This effect is mainly used for call-to-action placements. It can also be used to improve the ergonomic factor on an elearning platform.
We recommend using the Von Restorff effect during the elearning design stage to draw attention to some particular areas on the web page. In this way you can direct users’ attention to the vital part of the text or design.
Color matters
Different colors have an impact on humans’ perception of things. Deciding which color to use is one of the more important things during the elearning design process. Using the right colors will help your users to stay motivated and energetic. We recommend paying extra attention to this issue.
Typography
elearning platforms are usually filled with various learning materials. We recommend avoiding complicated fonts. Instead of that, use easy-to-read, elegant, and straightforward fonts. The fonts are an essential part of the elearning design process. Our team recommends choosing wisely from the start, so you will not have to spend additional time and money on redesigning the platform.
Conclusion
The rise of the internet and the worldwide pandemic caused fundamental changes in the education industry. In this article, we told you about the fundamentals of the ergonomics on elearning platforms. However, knowing the fundamentals is only the beginning. We offer our help to take your elearning platform to a completely next level. Contact us to find out all the details of possible cooperation with Axisbits.
