Reading time : 5min
How do you choose interactions relevant to your e-learning training?
Visual and interactive animations are powerful levers for learning and efficiency in e-learning, but they come at a cost: how can you make the most of them, while maximizing on your investment?
If you keep in mind all the benefits of visuals and interactions, and always consider the user experience, you will be able to select the most relevant animations for your animal health audience.
What are the benefits of hosting an e-learning course in animal health?
Visuals, media and interactions effectively strengthen the learning process in e-learning. Making a fun and interactive training experience facilitates memorization and motivates the learner to get involved.
Easier to memorize
We are visual beings: our brains therefore analyze images much more efficiently than words, so use visuals to convey your messages! Well chosen, visuals capture the spirit of your audience in a direct and lasting way. You can serve your words by images, photos, videos, but also by diagrams, tables or data-visualization.
The strength of e-learning lies in the multiple possible interactions between the learner and the technology. Discovery exercises, simulations, animations, or videos are all levers of learning and memory anchoring and they allow the learner to strengthen their knowledge and acquire new notions.
You can strengthen the interactions of your training by real situations: this is what is harnessed with blended learning. The combination of the two forms of learning helps with behavioural changes and facilitates long term enrolment.
Strengthen engagement
The addition of interactions generally improves learner engagement. Interactivity can be categorized into four; ranging from liability to total immersion.
Serious games, virtual reality and interactive quizzes force the learner to think, react and make choices. Knowing that these choices will influence the rest of their training is a quality which encourages the involvement of your audience.
The final quiz is 3:00 p.m.
The end quiz is often considered a must-have in e-learning. But a good interactive pedagogy throughout the training can sometimes mean it is not imperative.
However, it is still mandatory for some online training courses in Animal Health, for example those aimed at graduates (certificate of capacity, post-university training). For this type of program, we recommend separating evaluations from learning modules; a time for learning, then a time for assessment of their achievements.
How do you create a simple and consistent user experience?
To be effective, interactive training must provide a pleasant user experience. To do this, we recommend that you stay within the codes of classic digital marketing, dare to create a strong and harmonious graphical universe and think about the complementarity of the different media options.
Keep within the codes and standards of traditional digital marketing
As in traditional digital marketing, the user experience is key to achieving quality. So be sure to reduce the number of clicks and reduce the number of screens. The goal is not to encourage the learner to frantically click the next button!
Navigation must also be fluid. Write visible and easily understandable instructions, and make them consistent throughout.
Finally, simplify the graphics of the navigation buttons (“next,” “previous,” “submit your response”) and keep a unit on all pages. Changing them creates confusion, so use industry standard codes when they exist.
Create a strong and harmonious graphical universe
Animal Health is an area of emotion: strong graphical universes have their place. The graphical universe should strengthen the commitment of learners and help to anchor memory, not create distraction.
Be sure to always keep a coherent and harmonious universe in your training: this includes navigation (page templates, tone, fonts or color palette), but also the visuals and media used! All of these components create your graphical universe, convey emotion and display a style. Choose yours and don’t change it! Whether it’s solemn or humorous doesn’t matter, the important thing is to stick to it.
Don’t duplicate, think about the complementarity of the media
Each medium has its own use, duplicating information is useless and sometimes even frustrating for the learner!
For example, if you add a voice-over, rethink your text in a visual. Too often, the audio just repeats the text displayed in the module. However, each of us has our own reading rhythm and this can quickly become frustrating for the learner. It is much more effective to “undress” your screen: display keywords associated with visuals, for example, and use each medium to reinforce the other, to highlight the most important points to remember. Do not hesitate to eliminate what is not necessary.
How do you choose the most relevant e-learning animations for your Animal Health training?
Different reasons sometimes lead us to have to choose between different animations, interactions, or illustrations. So, you need to select the most useful and appropriate interactions for your audience, in order to keep a pleasant rhythm for the learner.
Keep the most useful interactions
Media (illustrations, infographics, icons, videos), have their place in digital training, provided they reinforce your messages. However, they represent a certain development budget, and it is therefore sometimes necessary to limit interactions.
In this case, think about their usefulness and contribution to the learning process. So you have to decide: if an illustration is only decorative, does it really have a place, and does it deserve the budget allocated to it?
Think about the pace of interactions
Training too full of visuals or media will not be pleasant to follow and can even be a source of frustration.
Our recommendation is to alternate interactions with animated screens, which do not need the intervention of the learner to be visualized. Your primary objective is the transmission of knowledge or know-how, so get straight to the point! A module won’t necessarily be more effective if you incorporate more interactions or visuals into it.
Make training accessible to your audience
Think of your audience, are they comfortable enough with it to enjoy the benefits of each interaction?
Also, adapt the interactions according to the terminal on which the module will be viewed. Consider again the user experience: on a smartphone, for example, we generally prefer “true/false” to multiple-choice questions.
Focus your efforts on useful and relevant interactions and on a fun and harmonious user experience. Your animations will really be at the service of learning and long-term change: this is the key to a successful training experience!
Our pedagogy experts, passionate about the animal health sector, can accompany you in the world of e-learning and help you explore all its possibilities! Check out our portfolio, or contact us to find out more!
