Great eLearning examples: what successful online training looks like
Want to know what fantastic eLearning looks like? In this Gomo blog, we look at some great eLearning examples and offer some insights into how companies are creating engaging training that gets results.
When you start devising your company’s eLearning courses, you might not be sure how to design your training so that it has maximum impact. With so many ways to tackle the challenge, you might feel overwhelmed by the potential options available and unsure where to start.
That’s especially true if you’re used to a more rigid range of design options than you get with a versatile authoring tool. If you’ve always bought off-the-shelf solutions, for example, it’s natural to have straight-from-the-box expectations and be less accustomed to having a strong degree of design control.
In this blog, we’ll focus on a few examples of what great eLearning examples can look like, and examine why they work and how you can achieve similar successes. Allied with sound planning and a clear vision of your key learning points and expected outcomes, these can act as practical pointers to ensure your eLearning meets all of your training goals.
Great eLearning examples #1: hold learner attention through microlearning
We know that people learn in very different ways to the traditional classroom-based model. Many employees now use mobile devices to build their understanding and knowledge. They might also:
- Work from different locations
- Structure their work in non-traditional ways
- Expect or need to access information almost instantly
Microlearning is a highly effective way of meeting the needs of today’s learners. It ensures your program is concise, memorable and flexible by delivering learning in bite-sized chunks.
For example, Rentokil Initial’s employees are often on the road. When they need to take a quick burst of learning to refresh their knowledge, they can access intuitive content, designed in Gomo, on their mobile devices.
Anyone who has ever turned to YouTube for a quick demonstration also knows the value of video in providing just-in-time learning experiences. For Johnson Controls, who support customers and employees in 150 countries, video learning has had a transformative effect.
Part of YouTube’s rise to becoming one of the world’s largest search engines is also down to how quickly people can find information. With the right video learning tool, you can allow people to search for videos. They can also find content through chaptering and indexing within those videos, right down to searching through comments. This functionality is easier to achieve than ever.
Great eLearning examples #2: making things user-friendly through continuous scrolling
Courses are increasingly moving towards using continuous scrolling. This is because people want to engage with a course in the same way they would with an app on their phone or a well-designed website.
Want two very familiar examples? Twitter and eBay use vertical scrolling in their site design to create supreme ease of use and encourage people to keep moving down the page in order to explore and consume more content. When your courses include continuous scrolling, you can:
- Improve usability and move away from “click next”-style learning
- Minimize page breaks and disruption to the learner experience
- Make learning more digestible by presenting small blocks of information seamlessly
A good example of this is Royal Mail Group, who used continuous scrolling as part of a slick transformation of their key learning courses. The design of their Know the Business courses invites learners to follow the path of a letter down a vertically scrolling page.
When you need to make sure that learners are not scrolling through content too quickly, you can limit what learners can see before they are required to engage with content. You can also add click-to-continue buttons, pauses, or quizzes and question blocks to check learner knowledge.
Great eLearning examples #3: make your course stand out with immersive imagery
Increasingly, we are seeing learning teams move away from using images in their traditional framed form within pages. Instead, they prefer to use full-screen background images. This can make the learning experience feel much more immersive, and ensure that courses are as visually striking as possible for learners.
It also mirrors the kind of modern design learners are used to experiencing from many well-known content platforms. Netflix, for example, often uses full-screen imagery to compelling effect.
One situation in which this visual approach can be particularly effective is in product training. A global technology company we worked with, for example, taught learners about appliances by providing information against a backdrop that showed a large image of each product.
Another major company to use immersive imagery successfully is Domestic & General, whose full-screen images include shots of customers using the kinds of products covered by the course content.
The ability to create great learning drives successful businesses
Having the right tools to create great eLearning is essential for businesses looking to thrive. First impressions count, and learners tend to make a decision on whether they want to engage with a course within seconds.
Beyond that, sustained learner engagement can only really be achieved with an authoring tool that allows you to create, host and deliver impressive modern learning experiences easily. As the organizations we have mentioned in this blog have found, the ability to do this leads to great business results.