There’s more to creating mobile e-learning courses than device compatibility. Have you thought about content compatibility? Think about it. What do people do on their mobile phones? They send texts, scroll through Instagram photos, and try to catch Pokémon. What do these activities have in common? They’re fun, engaging, and don’t require sustained focus. So why not approach mobile course design the same way? Here are some tips to help you make sure your mobile course hits the mark.
1. Understand Your Learners’ Mobile Needs
At the beginning of every e-learning project, you do an audience and a needs analysis, right? So why not integrate some mobile-specific questions into the mix to get a better idea of how “mobile” your audience is and what makes their mobile environment unique?
Ask questions like:
- Why are your learners mobile?
- Do they not have access to a computer?
- Do they live far away from the office?
- Do they spend a lot of time traveling for work?
- Do most of them use smartphones or tablets?
Once you understand your learners’ environment and their specific needs, you’ll stop building your course for mobile and start building it for your mobile learners.
2. Catch Your Learners’ Attention
If your learners are accessing your course on their mobile devices, chances are they’re on the go. They could be working out, waiting for a friend, commuting to work … or any of a million other possibilities. When you’re on the go, distractions are everywhere. So, if you want to get learners’ attention—and keep it—you’ll have to fight for it. Pique their curiosity by asking a thought-provoking question or by presenting a surprising fact or statistic.
And if you really want to make an impact, try using Rise 360 to create eye-catching, engaging lessons that are already optimized for mobile.
3. Keep It Short and Sweet
Mobile learners are pressed for time, so you need to get messages across fast.
Instead of making one long course, try breaking your course into bite-size chunks. That way, learners can complete each course from start to finish in one sitting. Shoot for a duration of two to five minutes for each mobile course.
If you’re having trouble cutting out content, sit back and think about your course objective. Now go through each point and ask yourself, “Does the learner need to know this in order to achieve the learning objective?” If some content is just “nice to know,” cut it out and offer it as an extra resource at the end of the course for learners who want to dig deeper. Check out this article for more help separating the “need to know” from the “nice to know”.
4. Use an Authoring Tool Designed for Mobile
Get a head start on making a mobile-friendly course by using an authoring tool that’s designed to build mobile-optimized lessons, like Rise 360. Since Rise 360 was built with mobile in mind, you’ll find a variety of lesson types that are perfect for mobile learning including interactions, assessments, modular learning blocks, videos, and more. And of course, all of these lessons work perfectly on every device—without any tweaking!
As you can see, adapting your content for mobile courses doesn’t have to be difficult, you just need to keep your mobile learners’ needs top of mind. Hopefully, these tips have given you the confidence you need to start building mobile courses!
If you want to test-drive Rise 360 to see how powerful it can be for mobile course creation, click here to start your 30-day free trial.
Published 9 years ago
Version 1.0
