There are principles of good learning design and delivery every training professional should be aware of. These are not mere abstractions but rather serve as a practical guide in planning effective online training programs. In fact, Geri E. McArdle, in his book Training Design and Delivery, encourages training professionals to become familiar with these and apply them later. Basically, if they understand these principles and weave them into their training, they'll create more effective online learning experiences.

Instructional design is not a one-person assignment limited to a single task. There are multiple disciplines involved in it, with the instructional designer assuming a series of roles to complete the job. This idea was presented in the paper, The roles of design: a new method of instructional design. In this document, authors provide designers with a series of viewpoints to consider throughout the development process.

Sure, anyone can design an eLearning course. The question is: how can you become a better designer?

eLearning didn't happen overnight. It's a product of years of human ingenuity and innovation. There are moments in history that contribute to the inevitable birth of eLearning. So in an effort to weave a story of how eLearning came to be, here are some bits of history worth recalling. 1. Early 1980s: The Introduction of Personal Computers

The secret to eLearning success is not only setting goals, but setting the right goals. In order to achieve the required end results, understanding the difference between the different types of goals and when each is appropriate to use is very important. Clarifying goals since the beginning will impact your course content, the way it's structured and developed. Besides, if you don’t design with the right type of goals in mind, the eLearning module will be a waste of time and money, since the problem needs to be addressed from other perspectives.

Psychologists, eLearning professionals and other experts have always been interested in how we consume information online. Receiving and transmitting information are not new to us. But our entirely novel information environments are clearly shaping the way we search for and consume information. Today, "providing people with access to more information is not the problem. Rather, the problem is one of maximizing the allocation of human attention to information that will be useful.”

Although often neglected when hiring an eLearning developer, the ability to write well is an important skill. Writing is a key part of the design procedure and equal in importance to interface design, visual design, and prototyping; however, unlike the other design aspects, which fall neatly into a timeline, writing is a continuous process.

It's easy to predict the success rate of a course just be looking at its introduction. If it's boring, learners would either skip it refuse to read it. Nonetheless, they're already convinced that the course is less than impressive.