A Guide On Creating Effective Digital Education Technology Products

eLearning has emerged as an integral part of modern educational medium in creating digital learning products. It comes with its unique accessibility challenges, but using the right design principles can help overcome these limitations.

Modern learning experiences are gained increasingly on desktop computers, mobile apps, and other digital environments. It is the era of elearning and it has influenced almost all levels including up to K-12 and higher education. The technologies involved in the development of digital learning products are more complicated and have different requirements than traditional standards. Digital accessibility is a major challenge in the digital learning environment and it can be resolved only by following proven design principles of elearning.

Follow the Coherence Principle

Make sure that there is uniformity in design format across the interface. Follow the simple principle of ‘less is more’ when creating education technology products.

• Avoid any addition of unnecessary sounds or visuals
• Avoid all distracting elements that can draw the student attention from the main educational content

Create a Visual Hierarchy

The goal of creating visual hierarchy is to build a viewing order for the elearner. The elements which are used for creating this hierarchy include:

• Color
• Alignment
• Image & font size
• Placement
• Typeface

The order depends on the importance of the different content pieces relative to each other. Create the order to help your students realize which content is more important. It is also important that all the elements are placed on the page while creating a natural flow between the orders.

Use Non-Distracting Colors

When it comes to creating educational content, color acts as a very powerful visual tool. Use the right colors and follow a minimalist design to avoid distraction and cluttering. Follow these tips when creating your digital learning solutions:

• Use the right color scheme for enough contrast while maintaining balance between minimalism and usability.
• Since darker colors draw more attention, use a combination of dark and light colors to create a balance.
• Bright colors can be used to bring your content to life. It is recommended to use only monochromatic bright color schemes so that there are no color clashes.
• Important information can be highlighted by using accent colors.

Follow the Multimedia Principle

When it comes to creating digital learning products, it is highly recommended to use combination of media instead of just text. However, you have to keep things in check and never overdo it. According to research, the use of irrelevant graphics or overuse of multimedia can interfere with the learning process.

You should use all the different multimedia formats to create your elearning products:

• Visual
• Text
• Audio

Audio-visual is considered to be the most effective pair in dissemination of education through this medium. Make sure that the content is simple because students cannot pay attention to multiple audio and multiple visual elements at a time.

Design Accessible eLearning Products

Modern educational products are meant to be effective and easily accessible to all students. However, there are people who have limitations and accessibility issues. So you should have your content evaluated with learning analytics platform and designed to be accessible to all students.

• The content in the course should be accessible to learners without the limitations of speech, auditory, visual, neurological and cognitive abilities
• The navigation should be clear
• Make sparing use of animation and interactions
• Design the course so that it can be accessed with a keyboard, not just the mouse

So follow all these tips to create more effective elearning products. Make sure to rely on data and online learning analytics before creating or modifying your content for your students.

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