Actually...we can’t help you cheat death or skip taxes, but we can show you common e-learning mistakes so you can avoid them.

E-Learning Challenge #32

Two weeks ago you told us what e-learning designers do. Last week you showed us what you’ve done as e-learning designers. What about telling and showing what e-learning designers shouldn’t do?

Show what we shouldn’t do? What is this, opposite day or something?

It’s kind of like like opposite day. If you’re like most course designers, you’ve learned more from your mistakes than you have your successes. And showcasing e-learning mistakes is what this week’s challenge is all about!

Challenge of the week

This week, your challenge is to design one or more slides featuring common course mistakes. Yes, mistakes. Unleash those pet peeves and visual nightmares. Don’t hold back. Amplify the mistakes. Let us feel the pain of bad e-learning.

There are quite a few ways you can approach this challenge. You can focus on visual design mistakes, usability and navigation mistakes, quizzing mistakes, or general online training mistakes you or “someone you know” has made.

There are two parts to this challenge:

  • List the mistakes. Use the comments below to list the mistakes you’re highlighting.
  • Show the mistakes. Design your slide using the mistakes you listed.

Please list the mistakes. Next week, you'll use your list to make fixes to your files!

Tools

You can use any program you like to build your bad e-learning examples.

Last week’s challenge

Before you unlearn everything you know in this week’s challenge, take a look at all the amazing work you and your fellow community workers have done recently:

More about the e-learning challenges:

The weekly challenges are ongoing opportunities to learn, share, and build your e-learning portfolios. You can jump into any or all of the previous challenges anytime you want. We’ll feature your work and provide feedback if you request it.

Wishing you the baddest week ever, E-Learning Heroes!

Even if you’re using a trial version of Studio ’13 or Storyline, you can absolutely publish your challenge files. Just sign up for a fully functional, free 30-day trial, and have at it. And remember to post your questions and comments in the forums; we're here to help. For more e-learning tips, examples, and downloads, follow us on Twitter.

74 Comments
David Anderson
Matthew Guyan
Daniel Sweigert
Bruce Graham

...and this is why I am one of the most sought after freelance IDs in the UK :) dl.dropboxusercontent.com/.../story.html Even the url sucks...   :) Things that could, possibly be better? Previous button on first slide, and Next button on the last slide Poor grammatical construction Images that are copied off iStock and have the watermark Long lines of text Closed caption that lags behind the spoken word Bad v/o that fades in and out with background noise Monotonous tone of voice Lots of different backgrounds Bloated wording Link / 404 errors Resources button that does not work All slide space filled Media/content that makes no sense Inconsistent font types (Lack of CRAP) No contrast, no reuse of design elements (titles for example are all different), bad Alignment, Bad P... Expand

Sophia Xu
Bianca Woods
Sophia Xu