Quite Possibly the Single Most Important Element of Effective E-Learning.

Have you ever browsed to a website and, not knowing exactly why, just thought it was cool? On the opposite end of the spectrum perhaps you've browsed to a site and, for whatever reason, just knew it sort of sucked! It's likely that the developer of the first site took some pride in their craft, and the second developer didn't. It's the little things folks that make all the difference.

It's not hard to find examples of this, check it:  Good Site  -  Bad Site

One of the single most important thing you can do on your way to becoming a ninja elearning developer is to take pride in the product you're producing and not overlook the little things that help the overall appearance of your course.

Yes, the content is important. Yes, interactivity is important, and of course tossing in some story-telling, scenarios and such are also vital, but all that can be void if your course looks crappy. It simply ruins the credibility of your product if it looks cheesy.

It could be appropriate white-space, simple drop shadows or reflections on images, the placement and alignment of your text, or even your font choice. Pay attention to these little things and your half way home to creating kick-butt elearning.

Let's consider product packaging as an example. If you've ever opened any product packaged by apple you'll know what I'm talking about here. It's not an exaggeration that it's an actual pleasure to open an apple product. The innovation alone engineered into the packaging is a marvel, but it's the little things that make the big difference. The clever way the product is placed in the package, the easy to remove seals and fasteners and even the material is nice to feel and smell...yes I said smell. I think apple may scent their packaging because it smells good. I've kept every apple package I've ever purchased, that's how good it is! This is the type of craftsmanship and detail you should work into your elearning courses.

Call me a freak, but I actually like taking someones cheesy looking PowerPoint presentation or attempt at a job aid, and dressing it up and adding my touch to it, and I always get the Ooohs and Awwws when they see what I did with it. It gives me a rush and makes me feel good about what I've accomplished. Let's have a look at an example.

The first image below is the 'Before' version of an elearning page, and although it's just a sample I threw together in about 3 minutes, it's realistic because I've seen a ton just like it in actual courses.

Whats wrong? How about the fact that it looks like it took about 3 minutes to make. Totally unrelated image for the content, my least favorite Times New Roman font with the dreaded indent, The whole thing is off-center, there's too much vacant space at the bottom, and it's all capped off with a misaligned generic looking continue button. This is what you shouldn't do and, although they may not be able to articulate exactly why, will turn your reader off quicker than Kanye can insult Taylor Swift.

I spent about 20 minutes reformatting this page and here is my revised 'After' product.

I changed the image to a more relevant image conveying emotion and threw in a perspective shadow to add depth, put the text into a colored box (spent some time here fiddling with the bevel and shadow until I liked the way the box looked), bulleted and spaced out the font, added some font color variation to emphasize some things, changed the font to a sans-serif font, and capped it all off by creating a cool looking glossy continue button in Photoshop (see my previous post on how to create this glossy effect in Photoshop).

It may take a few extra minutes to do these things but the juice will definitely be worth the squeeze and the end result will be a more professional eye-pleasing product that you can take some pride in. These little things can make the difference between a generic amateurish looking course, and a catchy, professional eye-pleasing masterpiece!