NYNP blog post 11-23-09

Six ideas for e-learning design

Last Friday, I attended a workshop titled "Strategies for Delivering Effective eLearning in Trying Times," hosted by e-learning company Kineo. I had worked with Kineo's UK partnership when I was at BELL, and they recently launched Kineo's US arm. It was a pleasure to see Kineo Partner Mark Harrison again, as well as meet US CEO Steve Lowenthal and US VP of Learning Design Cammy Bean.

As part of the workshop, Kineo demo-ed many of their e-learning designs, which can be seen on their website, kineo.com. It was interesting to see samples of their work, as well as several diverse ways the open source learning management system Moodle can be customized.

Here are six ideas from the workshop that you might find useful, especially if you work at a nonprofit that's short on time or resources:

1. Speed, rather than excellence, is the new wow factor. The difference between excellent and ok design is sometimes just not that big a deal anymore, but the difference between taking weeks to meet a project's goals versus taking months is truly impressive.

2. Use a fuzzy graphic to keep reviewers from ruining a project. Cammy shared a time-tested designer's trick for solving the problem of having too many reviewers who all want to put their mark on a project even when it's to the detriment of the project - intentionally include a fuzzy graphic. If you include a flaw like a fuzzy graphic, the reviewers can point it out and thereby feel like they've made a contribution (and hopefully leave the rest of the design alone).

3. You'd have to be bonkers to pay for an expensive LMS. With open source LMS options like Moodle, which are easy to use and highly customizable, there's no reason to pay for an expensive LMS. Mark shared that not only is Moodle widely used by corporations (this is backed up by a recent study by The eLearning Guild), but it's also used by the US military because the military finds it more secure to control their LMS themselves, rather than relying on a proprietary LMS.

4. Design e-learning like a magazine. Rather than forcing all learners into a linear experience, design e-learning that can be explored the way that readers explore magazines. Allow for browsing, provide a menu, and create an attractive look and feel that encourages voluntary exploration.

5. Have consultants hand off e-learning that's not finished. Some Kineo clients have found that they prefer to do the last-minute changes themselves, so Kineo has handed off e-learning that's almost finished, but not quite. The company creates e-learning that's easy for clients to edit themselves, which lets clients change their minds about the final wording as many times as they like because they control the content themselves.

6. Get the bloat out of the design process. Skip the 30-page design document, and go right to the mock-up. Better yet, start creating concrete designs during a meeting rather than merely talking about hypothetical designs, so that everyone's on the same page.