Designing content for eLearning is about more than organizing material into slides and quizzes. In corporate training, that means aligning instruction with business goals, designing content that respects the learner’s time, and using tools like gamification to improve engagement and outcomes.
Define Learning Objectives Early
Start with the objectives. What should the learner be able to do after completing the course?
Bloom’s Taxonomy provides a useful framework for writing clear objectives. It organizes learning into six levels: Remember, Understand, Apply, Analyze, Evaluate, and Create. These levels help match the type of interaction to the desired outcome.
For example:
- If the goal is to remember a process, a quick-reference guide or a flashcard review works.
- If the goal is to analyze customer feedback, a scenario-based activity is more appropriate.
Using Bloom’s Taxonomy during the planning phase helps avoid a mismatch between the content and the expected outcomes. It also informs the kind of interactivity the course should include.
Understand Your Audience
Knowing your audience helps define how long the course should be, how it should be delivered, and what tone it should use. In a corporate setting, learners come with different motivations and constraints.
Time: Most learners don’t have large blocks of time set aside for training. Modules should be designed to be completed in short sessions—15 minutes or less is a good rule of thumb unless the content demands more.
Device and Environment: Some learners will complete training at a desk. Others may use a phone or tablet during travel. Make sure content is responsive and works well on the devices learners are likely to use.
Motivation: Learners working toward promotion or certification will likely approach content differently than those completing mandatory training. For more motivated learners, include case studies and role-based scenarios. For compliance, build in workplace relevance to keep content from feeling like a box-checking exercise.
Design Interactions That Serve a Purpose
Interactivity should support the learning objectives. It’s easy to include clicks and animations that do nothing to improve understanding.
Instead, match the type of interaction to the skill level:
- Click-to-reveal or simple quizzes are fine for remembering and understanding.
- Branching scenarios and simulations are more useful for applying or analyzing.
- Open-ended prompts can support learners working at the evaluate or create levels.
The interaction should make the learner think, not just click.
Use Gamification Where It Helps
Gamification can make eLearning more engaging, but it needs to be tied to purpose. Not every course benefits from games, points, leaderboards, or badges.
Used correctly, gamification provides motivation and feedback. For example:
- Progress bars can show learners how far they’ve come.
- Badges can mark completion of key tasks.
- Leaderboards work in competitive or team-based environments like sales.
At it’s best, gamification aligns with the learning objectives and creates engaging, memorable experience that move the needle on learning and performance. At its worst, it gets in the way of learning and takes up valuable time.
Avoid gamification when it distracts from the learning. If a learner is more focused on collecting points than understanding the material, the game is not supporting the objective.
Keep the Design Simple and Accessible
Visual design should help the learner focus, not distract them. Here are a few guidelines:
- Use consistent fonts, colors, and layouts.
- Limit text on screen. Use short paragraphs or bullet points.
- Include visuals only when they support the concept being taught.
- Use captions, readable fonts, and accessible color contrasts to meet basic accessibility standards.
Many authoring tools support accessible design, but it’s still important to test content on multiple devices and platforms.
Test and Adjust Before Scaling
Before rolling out a course across the organization, run a pilot with a small group of users. Look at how they interact with the content. Collect feedback on what worked and what didn’t.
Questions to ask in a pilot:
- Was any part of the content confusing or unclear?
- Were interactions or gamified elements helpful or confusing?
- Did the learners understand what was expected of them?
Make adjustments based on this feedback before final rollout.
Final Thoughts
Engaging eLearning for corporate training doesn’t require gimmicks. It requires clarity about what learners need to achieve, content that matches their context, and design choices that support rather than distract from the learning.
If you’re designing a course and need help with planning, interaction design, or technology choices, Tang Technology offers a free 30-minute consultation to help you get started.