“Are you feeling me?” Well, are you? Or, more importantly, is your audience feeling you? Understanding you? Connecting to what you’re putting out there? To get a resounding “yes!” to these questions you need to concern yourself with resonance which is, among other things, “a quality that makes something personally meaningful or important to someone.” Or in the words of Tony Schwartz in his book The Responsive Chord "Resonance takes place when the stimuli put into our communication evoke meaning in a listener or viewer." But why is resonance so necessary to eLearning course design? Another definition for this concept has to do with sound and “the reinforcement or prolongation of sound by reflection from a surface or by the synchronous vibration of a nearby object.” In simple words; this means one vibration causes another vibration or a ripple effect. For your audience, if you pluck just the right heartstring for them, their learning process gets easier because one piece of information will set off reminders of other knowledge, making it simpler to connect them all together, so they don’t feel like so many individual things to remember. And when things are easier they are more likely to continue with your course and retain information. Your lesson will resonate when your audience feels it, understands it and becomes mentally/emotionally invested in it. As an eLearning designer, you need to be in sync with your students, to harmonize with them, their goals and their experiences. This is the only way to fight your way through the content crush, or oversaturation of content and information that your audience is subjected to each day. To do this your eLearning course content should have these attributes:

Product designer William Newton wrote a compelling article some time ago on the tiers of good design and the pyramid they form. But this idea can be applied to more than physical product design; it can be used to create better eLearning courses, as well. Find the original article here: The Design Process: A Pyramid Using this same structure, we explore just how the pyramid can help you improve your eLearning design workflow.

Design resources never stop reminding us how important it is to be consistent when creating any graphic piece. We don’t argue. But as an eLearning designer, you know how challenging it is to walk the talk when it comes to maintaining a consistent look-and-feel throughout the course. After all, we are creative folks and artists at heart. Our brains get weary and scream for some zing by the time we get through a couple of slides.

Have you ever read something where it seems like the material was written by someone who simply wanted to show off how smart they are? When this happens, do you find yourself thinking how brilliant the author is? No, it’s far more likely that you get annoyed with the person who wrote the piece and possibly frustrated with yourself. This is NOT the way to write your courses. As an eLearning designer, there will be times when you know the material far better than the average student, but the last thing you want to do is create a course that goes over students’ heads. You need to strive to be clear without talking down to your audience and engaging without being letting the entertainment value overshadow the information. Additionally, there are certain things that you need to consider when designing for people who will be viewing your eLearning course on a computer screen or other device. People who are learning online have far more built-in distractions over people reading from a piece of paper, which makes online learners: Focus on tasks not an overall experience Read up to 25% slowerbecause there are distractions like links to click on Read only about 20% of text on the average page Skim information instead of reading every single word Because of these factors, your eLearning courses must be concise and organized into easily manageable parts.

As the corporate world transitions from the four walls of the classroom to a more open virtual world, instructional designers are beginning to discover innovative ways to make eLearning work for learners. However, for many designers out there, it is still something “alien” that they view with excitement and curiosity mixed with trepidation. As it is with any nascent tool or trend, eLearning too is shrouded in myths. The sooner these eLearning myths are busted, the easier it would be for designers to conceive and create courses that provide value to wider audiences.

We’re living in an era where business is becoming primarily digital. As that continues, we face a bigger and bigger gap between those who use digital technology and those who understand digital technology. As this field continues to grow, companies that improve their employees’ digital skills will increase their productivity, be more innovative, and ultimately, enjoy long-term stability and increased profitability.

While your dating life might be just a swipe away, you need to treat your clients like the ones you want to marry. An eLearning designer’s job is not merely to design a course but to interact with clients (internal or external) and create a product that not only fits but anticipates their needs. In order to do this, you need to work on your relationship, build it and maintain it. With the tips you’ll find here, you will be well on your way to getting clients to say “I do” to your next project by working on creating good design and upping what you bring to the partnership.

Average skills are no longer enough to get or keep an average job, and you need even more when you are working in the technology-driven world of e-learning. As computers and machines take on almost Orwellian levels of skills and abilities, once adequate human skill sets simply aren't cutting it anymore. To give you and your e-learning team a fighting chance against the machines, learn, love and live these skills to succeed in 2016 and beyond.