The Beauty Issue
Using multimedia elements to create engaging learning experiences.

Face it. We live in an iPod/YouTube/Twitter world. It’s safe to say that most e-Learning courses today are developed for jobs commonly held by employees between the ages of 18 – 34. Gaining ground are the programs designed for professionals who have already scaled a corporate ladder rung or two. While these employees tend to be…well, let’s call them more experienced (after all, age is just a state of mind, right?), many 30-, 40- and 50-year-olds actively participated in the technology boom that formed the interactive communications and entertainment world we know today.

People have a huge array of media available at their finger tips. They can access specific information whenever they want—at home, in cars or on a trip two continents away. With so many members of the workforce part of the media-rich generation, shouldn’t e-Learning experiences take advantage of employees’ familiarity with and even addiction to multimedia gadgets and on demand information?

The answer is yes.

The point here is simple. Employee expectations are high. Don’t rely on text-only training to capture and hold learner attention. Remember, engaged learners typically retain more information than those who are bored.

To improve learner engagement, e-Learning courses should be interactive. Incorporating components like on-demand animation, video, audio, images and simulations can actually better communicate many concepts and processes. While eye-catching, well-designed graphics and navigation menus can be used to grab learner attention, access to appropriately placed vignettes, sounds clips, Flash presentations, interactive components and simulations can effectively bring the training content to life.

Of course, adding pretty pictures or impressive video demonstrations for no good reason may distract from the learning experience. When developing e-Learning projects, it’s important to find a balance between the media components that make the course engaging, and those that are most appropriate for teaching the training material.

When presenting new material, it might be best to offer text onscreen with supplemental charts, graphs or animations to provide additional details or real-world examples. When comparing or contrasting important information, text coupled with audio and interesting visual images (such as interactive timelines or image montages) allow you to teach to multiple learning styles. Finally, for training that requires learners to practice new skills, the most effective method is the immersive learning simulation. Sims that recreate real-world environments and processes make it easier for learners to transfer their training experience to their daily responsibilities.

It is also critical to understand your targeted learners, the computer or hand-held devices they’ll use to take the training, and potential delivery constraints. Nothing frustrates a learner more than taking a media-rich training course that constantly freezes up because they’re using inadequate network or hardware. And nothing frustrates a developer more than creating a media-rich training piece that sits on a shelf because no one is properly equipped to take the course.

While rich graphics and well-designed media components are great tools for helping you develop engaging and interactive e-Learning experiences, always remember to use multimedia elements wisely.