What Does It Take to be an Effective eLearning Developer?
At the heart of every successful eLearning course is a talented eLearning Developer. They are the ones responsible for breathing life into otherwise dull and boring training programs that put learners to sleep faster than a tranquilizer dart.
If your organization has a dedicated team in charge of creating its virtual training programs, then you probably already have one or two developers on your team. If they are really good at what they do, your training programs should be producing some very positive results.
If not, your company should definitely consider an alliance with an eLearning Development Agency which already has an established team of experienced developers. They help to deliver your project on time, on budget and with exceptional quality.
What is an eLearning Developer?
eLearning Developers are skilled at organizing and presenting data/information is such a way that it allows for efficient and effective understanding by its recipients.
They must posses a wide range of skills to properly perform their jobs. They have to wear many hats, often times acting as: a project manager, verbal and written communicator, graphic and information designer, and problem solving whiz.
If you are considering hiring an eLearning Development Agency to manage the creation of your organization’s training materials, this post will give you a bit of insight into what to look for in a good eLearning Developer.
Graphic Design and the eLearning Developer
Although eLearning developers tend to be very talented elearning graphic designers, they are less concerned with the attractiveness and artistic quality of the design and more so with its effectiveness in displaying the information.
The trained eLearning Developer creates a structure to present large amounts of information to a targeted audience.
In terms of design, the developer must also have the organization’s brand in mind, aligning the visual elements such as colours, logos, and typography with the corporate image that learners are accustomed to seeing. This not only keeps the training course design consistent with the brand but also reiterates the fact that the training materials were customized specifically for the target audience.
The Human Centered Designer
As we mentioned in our previous post about Custom eLearning Development, the design of every training program should begin with the company’s objectives and the audience in mind. Depending on the nature of your business, your audience could be internal to your organization like your employees and managers or external like customers or government officials.
The eLearning Developer must be capable of accurately transmitting the objectives of the organization while simultaneously communicating with the audience in a way that they can directly relate to – in their natural language. The needs, wants and limitations of the learners must considered at every stage of the design. By so doing, the information can be better structured to improve learning efficiency and information retention.
Building It Simple & Accurate:
A main concern when developing online training programs is simplicity. Simplicity doesn’t necessarily mean less information since in order to simplify a concept, sometimes more information is needed.
Equally as important is accuracy. Many eLearning materials are designed to educate decision and policy makers, hence the need to present data and information as accurately as possible.
Here is another situation where an eLearning Developer has to be able to find an equilibrium between two equally as important requirements – Simplicity and Accuracy.
An eLearning Agency and its developers can set you on the right path by helping to identify your learning objectives, creating a course design blueprint, designing a beautiful interface that matches your company’s brand, and much more.