You’ve heard, “you can’t judge a book by its cover.” But have you thought about this – if a book doesn’t have a good cover, most people won’t even give it a chance? This truth also applies to eLearning, and one factor that makes eLearning materials work well is design.
Good visual design is a powerful tool for engaging your audience, communicating key concepts, and setting the tone. Because no matter how accurate and thorough your content is, if it doesn’t look appealing, people won’t want to experience it. Let's look at four reasons why graphic design will make your eLearning course more effective and successful.
4 Reasons It’s Essential to Use Graphic Design in Your eLearning Course
1. Graphic Design Creates Focal Points
When an eLearning module is well-designed, it ‘guides’ learners through the course. Graphic design creates focal points that draw attention to the most significant parts. A simple change in font or font size can highlight key terms to remember – even if the slide or page is packed full of text.
Graphic designers can also adjust the placement of core ideas for importance, like putting them front and center or at the very top. Using a different text color can also emphasize a concept and make the reading less tedious.
2. Design Elements Help Learners Process the Information
It’s easy to get lost in a sea of words when you’re reading from a screen – even when you’re excited about learning the material. Graphic design helps learners understand the information better by infusing the module with colors, patterns, and easy-to-read text.
Applying contrasting colors to different blocks of text can subtly hint at conflicting thoughts and enables learners to process the differences better. Even simple patterns create a sense of order and help establish a relationship between ideas in an understated way.
3. Design Improves Readability
One challenge often faced by course creators is how to present highly technical topics and complex lessons so learners can easily understand. Graphic design elements (like layout, font, and white space) help make the material more readable – and understandable!
When dealing with technical topics, breaking apart ideas into different pages or slides keeps learners from getting overwhelmed with new information. Effectively using white space gives your course a clean visual layout and separates unrelated concepts. And, as we mentioned earlier, color, style, and font size highlight important concepts and make them easier to remember.
4. Graphic Design Helps with Navigation
Most eLearning modules are linear and follow one direction to proceed through a lesson. But what learners may not notice is that aside from the linear navigation, they also navigate through the page itself.
After several blocks of text, an image provides the mental stimulation that helps learners understand your lessons better. Questions in the middle and end of slides help jog their memory and test their comprehension. Learners can answer and proceed with the lesson or go back and reread what they didn’t understand.
When design helps with the navigation, the eLearning module can prompt learners to review and even assess their understanding – in some cases, even without a facilitator.
Impact Group Training Offers Graphic Design for Your eLearning Courses
If you need help taking your eLearning course to the next level with graphic design, contact Impact Group Training today! Our experienced graphic design team will work with you to create training materials that are engaging and effective.