The Art of Combining Illustrations and Photos in E-Learning
When you see illustrations and photos mixed together beautifully in a single design, the end result can seem effortless. And it’s hard not to be excited about how much easier your search for images gets when you can pick from both image types. But when you’re new to it, it’s not uncommon to feel a bit stumped on how to bring these very different styles together in a way that looks polished. If you don’t have the right strategy, your final design can look mismatched and cobbled together. Does that mean you need years of graphic design experience to get this combination to work? Not necessarily! It’s just a matter of knowing which approaches are more likely to look nice together. Let’s check out a few creative ideas for mixing illustrations and photos in your e-learning courses. Choose one style for the background and another for the foreground You’ve likely seen this technique used a lot in e-learning courses. And it’s not hard to understand why. Landscape photos or images from different locations are easy to find in Content Library 360 or on stock photo sites. And if you can’t find one you like, you can always use a photo you’ve taken yourself. Either way, using photos as a backdrop and adding illustrated characters at the forefront can make for a really unique design. The Mori’s Journeyinteraction by Samara Reyneke highlights one of the most important things that makes this combination work seamlessly: consistency! The backgrounds are all photos. The characters and items in the foreground are all illustrations. Not only that, the illustration styles are all similar. Consistency throughout the entire project helps this look like a purposeful design choice, instead of just a bunch of random image styles. You can also do the opposite and use illustrations in the background and images in the foreground. Molly Fisher’s Grammar Practice Fill-in-the-Blank example uses the charming combination of an illustrated TV with real video programming. Use image filters to make everything look like an illustration The challenge of mixing photos and illustrations mostly comes down to how different they look. But what if there was a way to make them work together? That’s completely possible with the help of the photo filters in stand-alone filter apps or photo-editing software. These filters make changes to the look and feel of your images, like simplifying the colors or adding outlines. And because those changes are applied consistently to your photos and illustrations, it helps them look like they belong together. A good example of how this can work is Tracy Carroll’s project Jonathan’s Story. In it, she used a tool called Colorcinch to make her images look like hand-drawn comic book frames. While this project just used photos, you still get a sense of how you could take this same technique and mix different image types for a cohesive look. Use illustrations that look realistic There are many different styles of illustrations. They can range from simple and sketchy all the way to looking like actual photos. And it’s those photo-realistic illustrations that help you with this approach. Combining realistic illustrations with a photo background helps make your course design look seamless. A cool example of this is Sarah Hodge’s How to Fight a Bear course. She used 3D models of bears instead of photos, allowing her to create an interaction where learners can rotate them to show their identifying features. But because those models were designed to look realistic, they blend in smoothly with the photo background. Use illustrations as annotations or accents Have you ever watched sports commentators draw on a still shot from a game to explain a play? Well, that approach can also work in e-learning! Your photo becomes your base image, and then you use illustrations to provide additional information. You can see how useful this approach can be in this x-ray exampleby Preethi Ravisankar. Helpful illustrations displayed on top of the photo give you a peek at the inner workings of a person’s skeleton. Because of the way it’s designed, the illustrations work with the photos and don’t seem out of place. You may have also seen advertisements, websites, or book covers that use a combination of photos with doodle-like illustrations. This technique has become more popular in recent years and can give your project a friendly, mixed-media feel. You can see it at work in this interaction exampleby Samuel Apata, where a hand-drawn sketchnote weaves in a photo character who seems like they’re pondering the topics. Learn More While these approaches are a good place to start when you want to blend photos and illustrations, they’re not the only way to use the two styles harmoniously. So, keep an eye out for other designs that do this effectively and let them inspire your course designs. Want more ideas on how you can use images in your courses? Check out these resources. 34 Mixing Photo and Illustration Examples in E-Learning Design #312 4 Fast & Easy Changes That Will Make Your Old Storyline Courses Look New Again 7 Creative Ways to Use Images in Rise 360 Courses 5 Ways to Use Animated GIFs in Your E-Learning Follow us on Twitter and come back to E-Learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning. If you have any questions, please share them in the comments.What to Include in an E-Learning Style Guide
An e-learning style guide is a great way to make sure your projects have a consistent look and feel. It allows you to identify best practices and set standards for how your organization develops courses. While some people might think a style guide limits creative freedom, there are many good reasons to put one in place. An e-learning style guide: ensures a polished and professional output serves as a quick reference tool saves time—meaning less time wasted reviewing and editing design choices expands on a company’s general brand guide, which often doesn’t take e-learning needs into consideration A style guide is especially helpful for organizations with multiple e-learning developers because it ensures consistency across projects. Ready to create an e-learning style guide, but not sure what exactly to include to make it useful? Below are a few must-haves you’ll want to consider. Logos The logo is an essential visual piece of any brand. Your style guide should explain where and when to use the logo. You might also outline the acceptable size, placement, and color variations for the logo, as well as examples of correct and incorrect use. Fonts Most organizations have a few fonts they prefer to use that have already been approved or reflect their corporate personality. Your style guide should outline which fonts to use, what size they should be, and when to use them. For example, you might use a bold 44 pt heading font for lesson titles and a regular 28 pt font for the body text on your slides. Tone or Voice Every company has a unique way of conveying their brand message to their audience. Whether that’s direct and serious or fun and playful, their tone or voice should come through in the course text. Study their website or other company materials to help you define how they communicate. Then share a few example paragraphs or specific copy that mirror a similar tone in your style guide. Writing Tips This could include rules for how to name courses, modules, lessons, assessments, activities, etc. You might also want to specify how to capitalize and punctuate lists and whether to use numbers as numerals or spelled out in full. Colors How a color appears may vary from one monitor to the next, so it’s important to provide actual hex values for your color palette. Specify whether your company allows various tints or shades of the colors and where specific colors are required. Visual Elements Images or illustrations can be a huge reflection of a brand. Consider including guidelines about the format, size, and types of graphics designers should use. Provide example images or illustrations that reflect the company’s brand. Buttons If the company has a standard look for buttons, include it in the style guide, along with tips on when to use each button. Templates Templates are a great way to speed up workflow. If you’ve created any templates—such as layouts, interactions, or quizzes—let people know where to find them in your style guide. If you want the courses to look on-brand regardless of content, create a player template that contains the company logo, custom colors, and specific menu settings that should be consistently applied. Audio Narration If your courses use audio narration, consider addressing that in your style guide. Include things like when to use narration, if a particular intro or outro is used, or if your courses use a specific person for narration versus text-to-speech. Quizzes & Feedback Quizzes are often part of courses, whether they’re brief knowledge checks at the end of a section or a final quiz at the end of the course. Your style guide should tell your developers when to use quizzes, whether there is a maximum number of quiz attempts allowed, and whether there’s a standard minimum passing score. It should also include information on how feedback is provided, or whether it’s provided at all. Miscellaneous Depending on your organization and your projects, you might include other items in your style guide—for example, tips for navigation flow or instructions for naming variables. Consider adding anything to the style guide that’s displayed or used across multiple courses. Additional Tips Remember, an e-learning style guide is a great way to give your projects a consistent look and feel. Here are a few more things to keep in mind. Don’t be too strict. Remember to allow some flexibility for creativity and originality. Show examples of what to do and what not to do. Examples are always helpful! Consider using your course creation apps to train your team on the finished style guide. Resources Looking for other resources to help you build your e-learning style guide? Check out these articles: How to Create a Branded Storyline 360 Prototype How to Brand Your Rise 360 Course Create a Cohesive Look with These 5 Storyline 360 Visual Design Pointers 3 Ideas for Balancing Branding Guidelines with E-Learning Design What do you like to include in your e-learning style guides? Please share your ideas in a comment below. Follow us on Twitter and come back to E-Learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning. If you have any questions, please share them in the comments.10 Most Popular E-Learning Heroes Articles of 2023
As we wrap up 2023 and look ahead to all the things to come in 2024, now is the perfect time to catch up on the most popular content shared in the E-Learning Heroes Community in 2023. To save you time, we’ve rounded up the best of the best for your review. Check them out: 4 AI Basics Every E-Learning Creator Needs To Know in 2023. Get up to speed on artificial intelligence with this quick introductory article. Introducing the Articulate Beta Program. Learn about this new opportunity to share your feedback on our latest features. 4 Impactful E-Learning Trends for 2023. See how you can shape the future of learning by following these strategies in your workplace. 8 Business Use Cases for Microlearning. Discover how to leverage short-form courses for these common workplace situations (and get creating faster with customizable examples!). 4 Ways To Choose an E-Learning Color Palette. Check out these tips for curating the perfect hues for your next project. How To Write Alt Text for the 4 Most Common Types of Images in E-Learning. Explore alternative text best practices for handling the most common image types in e-learning. 6 Ways the E-Learning Heroes Community Makes Your Job Easier. Learn more about all the resources, discussions, articles, and connections this site offers to help you work faster and create more innovative projects. 4 Advantages of Microlearning. Discover the main reasons e-learning designers and learners are loving this bite-size approach to training. 3 Ways To Boost Your Articulate 360 Skills. Whether you’re a total newbie or you’ve dabbled in our apps before, these tips will help you get to the next level. 3 Things That Can Make or Break Your E-Learning Design. Craft beautiful and effective online training from the start with these helpful ideas. We hope you find these articles helpful! If we missed any other E-Learning Heroes articles you liked in 2023, comment below and let us know. Subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest e-learning inspiration and insights directly in your inbox. You can also find us on LinkedIn and X (formerly Twitter). And if you have questions, please share them in the comments.Quickly Create Stunning Courses With Rise 360 Themes
If you need to quickly create beautiful, responsive e-learning, Rise 360 is the authoring app for you. With stunning prebuilt themes and countless options for personalization, it’s never been easier to create unique, cohesive learning experiences. In this article, we’ll walk you through how to make your online courses look gorgeous and professional. 1. Choose a Theme In Rise 360, you’ll find three beautiful, prebuilt themes created by award-winning designers that you can apply to your courses in just a few clicks. Let’s take a look at each option. Rise Live Preview of Rise Our original theme—Rise—is modern and clean. It’s extremely versatile and works for all subject matters. Apex Live Preview of Apex If you’re looking for a bold, contemporary theme, Apex is a great option. Your learners will love its striking, angular finishes. Horizon Live Preview of Horizon For something a little more elegant, look no further than the Horizon theme. Its sharp and stylish feel with understated flourishes can set the right tone. To apply one of these themes to your next project, simply open a Rise 360 course, go to the Theme menu, and select the style you want. 2. Select Customization Options Once you’ve chosen a theme, you can further customize the look and feel of your Rise 360 courses to ensure they’re on brand. Let’s take a closer look at some of the options available. Cover Page Layouts Each theme includes a variety of stunning cover page layouts to make a strong first impression on your learners. You can use the same one for every course, or switch it up to keep things fresh for your learners. Here’s a peek at the different cover layouts you’ll find for each theme. Rise Apex Horizon As you can see, there are tons of possibilities! So you’re sure to find one that works well for your project. Navigation Types Another thing you can customize is the course navigation type. Let’s take a peek at each option. Sidebar The sidebar navigation option is tried and true. It allows learners to access the course menu and content simultaneously, while also giving them the option to hide it when they want to focus on learning. This versatility makes it a great option for any course. Compact Like the sidebar, compact navigation lets your learners decide to either view both the menu and content or minimize the menu for fewer distractions. The main difference here is that even when learners hide the menu, they can still see where they’re at in the flow of the course—allowing them to continue monitoring their progress. Overlay If you want to give your learners a more immersive experience, where they’re only focusing on one thing at a time, overlay navigation is a good option. When they open the menu, they’ll be able to give your course outline their full attention. And when they close it, the content will be the sole focal point. Button Styles You can also customize the look and feel of the buttons that guide learners from one lesson to the next. In addition to a few different color options, you can choose whether you want them to be full width like in this screenshot … … or floating, like in this one … Or you can remove them entirely. It’s up to you! Lesson Headers There are also a number of options for personalizing the lesson headers. For starters, you can choose whether or not you want one. If you decide you do, you can customize the background color or image. Then you can select the height option you prefer: low, medium, or high. And finally, you can opt to show or hide the lesson number and author avatar. Colors When it comes to colors, you can choose one of our default theme colors or select your own by using the color browser or inputting a Hex code. Once you’ve selected your theme color, it’ll be applied throughout your course automatically. Font Pairings Rise 360 gives you a variety of professionally selected font pairings, so your course text looks polished. Of course, you also have the option to create your own by mixing and matching default fonts or uploading your own for a truly personalized look. And that’s just the beginning! With all these customization options—and more—the possibilities are truly endless. Wrap-Up With Rise 360, it's easy to create cohesive, professional-looking learning experiences—even with no prior training or design experience. Ready to try it out for yourself? Simply head to your Rise 360 dashboard, create a new course—or open an existing one—and click on the Theme tab to check out the customization options. It’s that easy! Don’t have Rise 360? Start your free 30-day trial of Articulate 360 now. For tips and inspiration on how to use themes to create beautiful, branded e-learning, check out these helpful resources: Make Over Your Rise 360 Courses in 4 Easy Steps with Themes 3 Ways to Use Rise 360 Themes to Tailor Your Projects How to Brand Your Rise 360 Course And if you found this article helpful, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter to stay up-to-date on the latest product updates, e-learning examples, and expert advice directly in your inbox. If you have questions, please share them in the comments.How I Designed This Immersive Scenario on Prioritizing Tasks
Recently my fellow instructional designers Sarah Hodge and Madison McCartney and I teamed up to prove that there’s always more than one way to present course content. Each of us created a mini-course on prioritizing tasks, using the Eisenhower Decision Matrix as our starting point. In this article, I’m going to walk you through how I got from this: … to this: View interactive version | Download template Without further ado, let’s get into it! Setting the Scene Since I created this project as an example, there’s no real target audience, much less learning objectives. But to make it feel realistic I set some basic parameters to guide my design thinking. Here’s what I came up with: Audience: Novice e-learning project managers Learning objective: Be able to identify tasks, classify them as important and/or urgent, and prioritize them accordingly Coming Up with the Concept Over the years, I’ve seen a lot of great e-learning examples in the E-Learning Heroes community, but a few really stand out to me. One in particular is this time management game by Phil Eagles. I love the way he took a series of simple multiple choice questions and made them into a scenario that feels real and meaningful. And since time management is so closely related to task prioritization, it’s the first thing I thought of when I started brainstorming ideas for my project. I wanted to create something similar—but put my own spin on it. Because I wanted to create a totally custom and immersive scenario, Storyline 360 was the perfect choice for this project. I decided to simulate a desk and let learners identify tasks and prioritize items for themselves. The idea behind this was to emulate real life—where learners have to identify tasks and decide which ones to do first—while also following one of the key principles of adult learning by giving them control over their learning experience. Refining the Scenario Once I had a general idea of what I wanted to do, it was time to iron out the scenario details. I wanted to give learners enough opportunities to practice prioritizing tasks without it feeling repetitive. I included a few different types of tasks—since that’s what it’s like in real life. In the end, I settled on a total of six tasks, including a few emails, a couple of text messages, and a Post-it. As I started to build out my scenario, I ran into some challenges. One of the main issues was that my slide was getting overcrowded. To overcome this challenge and help learners focus on one thing at a time, I divided the process of task prioritization into two parts: Step 1: identify and analyze the tasks to determine how urgent/important they are Step 2: prioritize the tasks based on their level of urgency/importance For step one, I used a series of toggles so the learner can decide if each task is urgent and/or important. Based on their answer, I provide custom feedback. This is how that turned out: For step two, I made a simple drag-and-drop interaction so the learner can decide where each task belongs on their to-do list based on its level of urgency and importance. Here’s what that ended up looking like: Because this project was intended for adults who may have previous experience with the Eisenhower Decision Matrix, I made the explanation walk-through optional, as shown in the screenshot below: Is this how I initially envisioned my project? Absolutely not. To be honest, I don’t think I really had a clear mental picture of what it would look like. Some people can map out their entire project before they even open up the authoring app, while others do better jumping straight into building and get inspired along the way. Both methods are totally fine as long as you always keep your learners’ needs at the center of your design. Designing the Graphics As someone with no formal graphic design training, I can be challenged to come up with ideas for the look and feel of my courses. To find inspiration, I usually start by checking out the examples and templates on E-Learning Heroes as well as the Content Library 360 templates. Even if I don’t find exactly what I need, I usually come across something I can use as a starting point. Personally, I find that starting with a template is less intimidating than starting from a blank slide. And even if the final result ends up looking completely different than the original template, having something to start with helps me channel my ideas and inch closer to a place I feel good about. So, once I knew that I wanted to create an immersive scenario, I headed straight to E-Learning Heroes to look for templates I could use as a springboard for my design. A quick search for “desk” led me to this template, which I thought was perfect: Download Template After opening the template, I made some adjustments and played around with different color options. Here’s what my first version looked like: There’s nothing wrong with the way this looks, but—as I mentioned earlier in this article—it was at this point I realized there wasn’t enough room on the slide to allow learners to both identify and prioritize tasks in one spot. Splitting the activity up into two parts gave me more screen real estate to work with. Around this time, I also decided I wasn’t sure about the mint green wall and wanted to give white a try . . . . . . but I wasn’t totally sold on that either. I also felt lukewarm about the way the desk looked and decided to incorporate some texture. This is what the next version looked like: Wondering how I created the wood texture? I did a Google search for “flat design wood,” inserted one of the images I found onto my slide master, and then used the curve tool and shapes in Storyline 360 to achieve a similar effect. This is what it looks like behind the scenes: I was pretty happy with the way this looked, but when I started adding other objects to the screen, I realized they didn’t stand out enough against the dark blue background. That’s when I settled on the design you see in the final version: I went through a similar process for the other slides in my project, so I thought I’d share the different versions with you as well. . . . and here’s the final version. You’ll notice that in the final version I pulled in the computer screen from the previous slide to tie it together a bit more. I also changed the size of the boxes to make it all fit on the screen. As I was working on my core content slides, I also started to pull together my title slide. Since my other two slides used a flat design style, I wanted to stick with something similar. I found this simple slide template in Content Library 360 and used it as a starting point: I didn’t want to include characters, so I deleted those and changed the color of the background to match the dark blue I was using at the time. After taking out the characters and changing the color, I felt like the slide was too minimal. It was missing something, so I sat and thought about how I could incorporate more visual interest. That’s when I had an idea: what if the title slide was a view of the desk from above? And since we’re talking about prioritizing tasks—and many people write their to-do lists in a notebook—I thought that might make sense and look nice. So I went back to E-Learning Heroes for some inspiration and ended up finding this spiral notebook template: Download I imported it into Storyline 360 and made a few adjustments to make it all come together. Here’s what it ended up looking like: As you can see, graphic design isn’t always a straightforward process. It doesn’t necessarily go from zero to perfect in one fell swoop. In many cases it’s an iterative process involving incremental changes until you’re happy with what you’ve got. So the next time you’re feeling stuck and unsure about your design, try doing what I did and search E-Learning Heroes or Content Library 360 for a template you can use as a starting point. Then, make small changes here and there. Eventually you’ll get to a place where you feel good about your design. More Resources Hopefully you’ve found this inside look at my design process interesting and insightful! Remember, it’s okay if your first draft isn’t perfect. Design (whether it’s instructional or graphic) is a process, and it often takes trial and error to get it to where it needs to be. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that! If you enjoyed this article and are looking for more insight into what goes on in the minds of instructional designers as they’re creating courses, be sure to check out these articles: How I Designed This Personalized Decision Matrix How I Designed This Interactive Dial Matrix A Behind-the-Scenes Look at How I Designed This Gamified Quiz Want to try building your own immersive scenario in Storyline 360, but don’t have Articulate 360? Start a free 30-day trial, and come back to E-Learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning. If you have any questions, please share them in the comments.Everything You Need to Know About Image Usage Rights
It’s tricky to find appropriate, usable images for e-learning projects. And sometimes after you’ve found the right photo, it’s unclear whether you can legally use it. Images are protected by copyright. So you can’t add any photo you find online to your e-learning project. But trying to do the right thing can raise more questions than answers: What if I just link to their website? Should I reach out to this person? Wait, I don’t see who owns this image! Usually images you’ll find on photo sites fall into one of a few categories. Here are some of the different usage terms you’ll find. Copyright Copyright law protects original works, including images. In most cases, you can’t copy or distribute a copyrighted image without permission from the person who created it. You should assume that any image you find online is protected by copyright. If possible, contact the copyright holder for permission to use their work. When you buy a stock photo, you’re buying the right to use that copyrighted image. Depending on which site you use, the image may be royalty-free or rights-managed. Royalty-free means that you’re not responsible for royalty payments. You’re usually able to use the image as you’d like. Rights-managed means there are restrictions on how you can use the image—so be sure to read your license agreement closely! Fair Use The fair use doctrine provides opportunities for using copyrighted images without permission. For instance, you can legally use a copyrighted image for personal and educational use, or for the public good. Most e-learning is commercial. As a course creator, you should assume that using copyrighted images in your work doesn’t qualify as fair use. But fair use also allows you to transform copyrighted images into something new. If you turn a copyrighted image into a completely new work, you can use that image freely. Creative Commons The Creative Commons non-profit provides free copyright licenses for creators. The copyright holder can determine several things with these licenses: Whether you need to credit them for their image Whether you can use their image for commercial purposes Whether you can modify their image What license you must use if you modify their image When using Creative Commons images, be sure to read the license carefully and use the image appropriately. Pro tip: Some photo sharing sites, such as Flickr, allow you to filter search results by specific Creative Commons licenses. Public Domain Typically an image becomes part of the public domain in one of two ways. The creator either gives up copyright willingly, or the copyright expires. These images aren’t protected by copyright, so you’re free to use them any way you’d like. Pro tip: WikiMedia Commons has a large database of images in the public domain. A Helpful Alternative Of course, the easiest way to source freely available images is by finding e-learning solutions that provide stock assets. Articulate 360 includes Content Library 360, an ever-growing library of visual assets that you can access right from within Rise and Storyline 360. The stock photos, images, icons, videos, course slides, and characters in Content Library 360 are 100 percent royalty- and attribution-free, so you can use them in your e-learning however you’d like. See what’s available in Content Library 360 when you start a free, 30-day trial of Articulate 360. You’ll also get access to award-winning authoring apps Storyline 360 and Rise, a project review app, and access to live online training led by industry experts. New to e-learning? Sign up for our E-Learning 101 email course, a series of expertly-curated articles that'll get you up to speed with course development.5 Graphic Design Mistakes Newbies Make and How to Avoid Them
If you’re new to the e-learning field, you might soon realize that people often assume you have some kind of magical power on the ready: they not only expect you to design the content, they also expect you to make that content look great. And if you don’t have any graphic design knowledge, you might feel pretty intimidated right about now. The good news is that this article will help you avoid making a few rookie design mistakes and get you on the road to success. Mistake #1: Designing a Unique Layout for Every Slide One of the most common graphic design mistakes that newbies make is creating a new slide layout for every slide. But using too many different slide layouts can make your course feel disjointed. For example, take this set of slides: Each of them is completely different, so it doesn’t feel like they’re part of the same course. Reusing a few basic layouts—with similar shapes, colors, and compositions—throughout your course gives it a more cohesive feel, like in the Content Library slides below. Another benefit of reusing the same slide layouts is that it helps learners instantly identify the type of slide they’re looking at—for example, a title slide or a quiz slide—making it easier for them to know what to do next. When you’re designing your course, start by creating a layout for each of the basic slide types you find in most e-learning courses and go from there. Mistake #2: Using Too Many Different or Flashy Colors If you’re required to use your company’s graphic guidelines, then you might not have much choice in the colors you use for your courses. But if you have a little more freedom to choose your own colors, you might find yourself wanting to include lots of different colors to add a little flair and personality to your course. However, it’s important to resist the urge to use all the colors of the rainbow in the same e-learning course. Why? Overusing colors can overwhelm learners and make it hard for them to know what to pay attention to. Take this slide, for example: There are so many bright colors mixed together here that it’s hard to know what to focus on. But that doesn’t mean you can’t use bright colors at all, just that you should use them in moderation and in a purposeful way. Take the slide below, for example: I used the same yellow as in the previous example, but this time I used it on a white background along with some muted gray tones that are less visually aggressive. And the use of yellow here immediately attracts your eyes to the numbers, making them the clear focal point of the slide. When you’re starting out, try to keep your color palette to a minimum. Start out with three colors, for example, one dominant and two neutral. When you start to get a little more comfortable with graphic design, you can start using more colors, while still keeping in mind that the colors should complement each other and not overwhelm the learner. If you’re looking for color palette ideas, be sure to check out Adobe Color and Design Seeds. And if you’re keen for more tips on choosing color palettes, try reading these helpful articles: 5 Ways to Choose Color Palettes for E-Learning Popular Color Schemes for E-Learning Design The Color Effect: How Your Palette Affects Learners Mistake #3: Going Font Crazy When people are just starting out in e-learning, they usually do one of two things. They either leave the default font settings as is, or they go crazy and use tons of different fonts. While projects with default fonts may be missing that little something extra, they usually look better than those with too many used haphazardly. Here’s an example of a slide with too many different fonts: In the above example, there arefour different fonts. Not only are some of them hard to read, they just don’t go together and so they detract from the message. Much like colors, when it comes to fonts, less is more. Let’s look at this same slide with only two different fonts: I typically choose two fonts for my courses: one for the headings and one for the body. If you’d like, you can also mix in a third font for things like quotes or key words that you want to really stand out. However, I would avoid using more than three fonts in the same course. If you want to emphasize a key message, try putting the text in bold or changing the color instead of using a different font. Here are some other resources about typography I recommend checking out: 5 Important Rules of Typography for E-Learning Designers E-Learning Typography & Finding the Perfect Font My 4 Favorite Free Fonts for E-Learning Mistake #4: Not Leaving Enough White Space If you’re not familiar with the term “white space,” it refers to any empty areas between objects on your slides—whether it’s actually white or another color. When there’s a lot of course content, it can be tempting to pack as much as you can into each slide. I see this a lot, especially with new e-learning designers. Have you ever seen a slide like the one below? That’s a lot of information to take in at once! When slides are too dense, it can be hard for learners to pick out the key messages. A good rule of thumb is to present one idea per slide. Don’t be afraid to leave white space. Au contraire, embrace it. Let’s take a gander at what it would look like if I broke the above slide down into several “airier” slides. Ahhh … much better! When you leave enough white space it’s easy to pick out the important information. Remember: it’s better to create more slides with less information than vice versa. Check out this article for more tips on keeping the content on each slide to a minimum: 5 Ways to Avoid Overloading Your Slides. Mistake #5: Mixing and Matching Images That Don’t Go Together A lot of newbies choose images that accurately represent the content, but don’t necessarily match the other images in the project. I get it! After all, the content itself is the most important part of the course, isn’t it? Well, yes and no. It’s important to choose images that add value, but it’s also critical that those images work well together. If they don’t, you could end up with a course that doesn’t look very professional. Take this slide, for example: The mix of photos, icons, and illustrations makes the slide look disjointed. And while people say not to judge a book by its cover, the reality is that we all do. If you want your learners to take your course seriously, the graphics need to be on point. Look how much better that same slide looks when I use all photos. To make sure your images look like they go together, don’t mix and match image styles. While it’s possible to get a good result when mixing photographs and illustrations, doing so is a complex feat that’s best left to the experts. If some of your photos are black and white, add a black-and-white filter to all your photos. Don’t mix flat design illustrations with more realistic illustrations. The key here is to make it look like all the images were created especially for your course, even if that’s not the case. More Resources Now that you know the top five newbie mistakes and how to avoid them, you’re ready to get started! But if you feel like you could do with some more graphic design guidance, check out these great resources: E-books: Essential Guide to Visual Design How to Use Typography to Improve Your E-Learning Articles: Visual Design How-Tos for E-Learning Developers Who Else Wants Great Graphic Design Resources? Like this article? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest e-learning inspiration and insights directly in your inbox. You can also find us on LinkedIn and X (Formerly Twitter). New to e-learning? Sign up for our E-Learning 101 email course, a series of expertly-curated articles that'll get you up to speed with course development.GIFs 101: How to Use, Find, and Make Them
Aside from—you know—the ability to access any information you need in seconds, GIFs are the best thing about the internet. In this post, we’ll talk about what GIFs are, when to use them in your e-learning, where to find them, and how to create your own. You’ll learn everything you need to know about GIFs. (Except for how to pronounce it. We’re staying out of that debate!) What are GIFs? Basically, GIFs are image files that include animation. GIF stands for Graphic Interface Format. And, unlike JPEGs and PNGs, GIF files support animated images. Early GIFs were super basic. They were composed of just a couple of alternating frames, for example: In the 30 years that GIFs have been around, the art form has evolved. Now it’s super easy to find high-quality clips from TV shows and movies, quick clips of cats doing funny things, fun custom artwork, and much more! How can I use GIFs in my e-learning courses? GIFs are also great for your e-learning projects. They offer an easy way to delight your learners with some unexpected movement. And you don’t have to embed a full video or build an animation into your course. Making your learners laugh or expressing an emotion with a GIF can make your e-learning more relatable and more fun. Plus, they’re handy for demonstrating a process or system. Instead of having learners click from one slide to the next to see how a process works, you can use a GIF to give learners that helpful context. GIFs look particularly at home in Rise courses, which are web-based. Check out this example on hurricane preparedness and this one on cardiology observations to see what we mean. Where can I find GIFs? GIFs are abundant online. Some popular places to find great ones include: GIPHY, the most popular search engine for GIFs, allows you to browse for images by category or search to find exactly what you need. Educational GIFs, though it hasn’t been updated recently, has a ton of GIFs on processes, history, how-tos, and more. Imgur is a place for people to share images. A lot of these images are GIFs, and a lot of the GIFs are great. Social media sites such as Twitter are great places to find GIFs. How do I make my own GIFs? There are a couple of ways to make an animated GIF, depending on how involved you want to get. The old-school way provides you with the most control over the process. Here’s a tutorial that shows you how to put together a GIF from several static panels in Photoshop. There are also several widgets that can help you make GIFs quickly and easily. You build them from video snippets using GIPHY’s own GIF Maker App. You can create a GIF from images on GIFMaker.org. Or you can make and style your own reaction GIFs on sites like And I Was Like and GifCam. Get your GIF on! You now have all the knowledge and tools you need to find and use GIFs in your projects. If you have any other questions about when and how to use GIFs in your e-learning (or if you’re just looking for the perfect one for your project), let us know in the comments. And be sure to follow us on Twitter and come back to E-Learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning.Quick Makeover Ideas to Improve Awkward Color Schemes
Colors can grab attention and set the tone for a project. But you don’t want to catch people’s eyes for the wrong reasons. For example, this design uses a color scheme from an actual sign I saw recently. Do you like the way it looks? Chances are you had the same reaction I did. The image grabs your attention, but not in a good way! In this article, we’ll examine why the design above doesn’t work. Then, we’ll look at a few surprisingly easy ways to improve a project like this by changing just one thing—the colors. Why Does It Hurt to Look at That Example? Most people find color schemes like the one in the example above painful. And that’s not just them being dramatic—the colors are legitimately hard on the eyes. That’s because they’re highly saturated. Let’s dive into some basic color theory to explain. The simplest way to identify a color is by its hue—think of the main colors in a rainbow, like “blue,” “green,” or “orange.” Pure hues are incredibly saturated and vibrant, as you can see here. A pure hue’s intensity can attract attention, direct the eye, and make things stand out. But using too many pure hues makes it hard for our brains to decide what to look at first. What’s more, if you stare too long at the color bar above, you’ll likely notice how these bright colors also cause eye strain. Pure hues are the design equivalent of screaming, so using a lot of them together—like in our slide example—is visually exhausting. To fix the example, we need to move to a color palette that isn’t composed of only pure hues. There are an almost infinite number of color combinations, but here are a few stress-free approaches for picking attractive ones. Quick Fix 1: Desaturate the Colors One way to make colors less intense is to adjust their saturation. Pure hues are highly saturated colors, so desaturating them makes them less intense and grayer. The hue in the color bar above doesn’t change (it’s still orange), but it’s more saturated on the far left and progressively less so as you move farther right. If you’re a fan of vivid colors, not to worry. Just a touch of desaturation can calm down pure hues. That means you can maintain a bright color’s liveliness while making it easier on the eyes. Here, I took the original design and slightly desaturated each color. The image still has a friendly, colorful feel, but it’s less aggressive than the original. You might also notice that the new design feels less chaotic. That’s because it has fewer colors. The menu label is now white, rather than its original vivid green. White simplifies the color palette and reduces the visual disorder of the original design. Accessibility note: While we’ve addressed the eye strain challenges, there’s still not enough color contrast between some circles and the background to meet accessibility standards. To fix that, we’d need to continue tweaking the colors further with the help of a color contrast checker like this one. Quick Fix 2: Use Part of the Rainbow Our original colors were intense, but they also seemed randomly chosen. You can make your design feel more harmonious by using color combinations with a unifying theme. At first glance, this redesign has the same bright, friendly feel as the previous solution. But take a closer look, and you’ll notice that some circles have changed color. They’re also arranged much like the colors in a rainbow, with magenta shifting to orange—and orange shifting to yellow, green, and blue. That layout creates a subtle visual pattern that makes the colors look like they belong together. Quick Fix 3: Go Monochromatic Want a color palette that’s hard to get wrong? Try a monochromatic one. In this redesign, all the circles are lighter or darker versions of the same hue, so they immediately feel like they belong together. Also, the slow progression from light to dark subconsciously reinforces the idea of moving through a multi-part course. Accessibility note: It can be tough to find a background color that contrasts enough with both the lightest tints and darkest shades in a monochromatic color scheme. This redesign shares one solution—using a high-contrast outline around each color. Quick Fix 4: Look Online for a Color Palette If you’re uncomfortable putting together your own color combinations or feeling stumped for ideas, the internet is here to help! Try doing a quick Google or Pinterest search for “curated color schemes” for some eye-catching ideas. Or, check out the trending palettes on Coolors—which is what I did for the redesign above. In this redesign, the new color grouping didn’t pop as much on the original dark blue background. So I swapped it out for a more low-key off-white. When in doubt, a white background is another design choice that’s hard to mess up. Quick Fix 5: Use a Random Color Palette Generator Coloors has another valuable feature for creating polished combinations: a color palette generator. I used it to pick the colors in this redesign. Searching online will reveal numerous color scheme generators. These sites create attractive color combinations by using algorithms or pulling the dominant colors from an inspiration photo of your choice. While your results may need some tweaking to get things just right, they’ll get you started with a solid foundation. Plus, it’s pretty cool how well these sites can pull together attractive color combinations on their own! Quick Fix 6: Simplify and Make Things Smaller The previous solutions are handy when you have a lot of say in your color choices. But what if you’re stuck with an awkward set of colors because of brand requirements or stakeholder preferences? The first thing to do in those situations is to simplify how many colors you include on a single slide. In this redesign, I used the indigo blue sparingly and skipped the green entirely. That reduced how many design elements were competing for a viewer’s attention. I also simplified the background. Rather than sticking with the highly saturated indigo blue from the original design, I swapped it to a less-intense off-white. That gave the remaining colors more space to stand out—and white is rarely considered off-brand. Then, I took the remaining high-contrast circles and made them smaller, further reducing the design’s intensity. Shrinking the circles also put more white space between each vibrant color—another good trick for keeping pure hues from feeling overwhelming. Is the final result something I’d put together if given free rein on a project? Not really. I still find the colors a bit grating to look at. But the outcome is a good compromise solution when you can’t change the color palette at all. Wrap-Up Some color schemes are painfully awful to look at. But thankfully, even the worst of them can be delightfully simple to fix. You can get ideas for more attractive color combinations by thinking strategically about saturation, harmony, and the number of colors you use. And if you need a bit of assistance, pre-created sets and color palette generators can give you tons of inspiration. Looking for more tips on using color in your projects? Be sure to give these articles a read! 5 Popular E-Learning Color Schemes Storyline: 5 Accessible Color Themes Storyline 360: Theme Colors Follow us on Twitter and come back to E-Learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning. And be sure to share any recommendations you have for working with color in the comments below.6 Ways to Quickly Update an Outdated E-Learning Design
Imagine this: your boss messages you one morning, sends you a link to a dated-looking e-learning course, and says, “We need to get this information out to people ASAP. Can you just freshen it up quickly?” Your first instinct might be to toss the entire course out and start from scratch. But unfortunately, you don’t have time for that. Is there any way to quickly make over what’s already there? Thankfully, the answer is yes! There are lots of simple visual design tricks that anyone—even if they’re not an experienced graphic designer—can use to revitalize stale or outdated courses. So the next time you’re handed an e-learning course that needs a bit more polish, try following these six steps to improve it quickly 1. Replace Weak or Confusing Images Start by replacing or eliminating images that take away from the learning experience. Obviously, any images that are blurry, out of date, or unprofessional-looking need to go. But there are other ways images can be a distraction. For example, if an image is off-topic, it can be more baffling than helpful. And when there are lots of different images that don’t add any further information, they just read as clutter. Looking back at our example above, there are multiple image issues we can quickly solve: Get rid of off-topic imagery. The topic is travel safety, but the background is a hospital and the character is wearing scrubs. Replacing these images with travel-themed options will feel more on-topic. As well, let's assume the on-screen character is part of a course scenario. In that case, she makes sense to introduce here. But if she didn't actually play a part in the course, removing her completely might be the best option. Swap out low-quality images. The background image is a bit grainy. Even if the setting was right, we’d still want to swap this image file with something crisp. Scale images so they feel balanced. It’s confusing to have the character so much smaller than the background—and seemingly floating mid-air. Resizing her replacement to scale with the environment will make everything look seamless. Remove clutter. While the icons on the left are related to travel, they’re not adding any further meaning. This design would be noticeably clearer without their visual noise. Here’s an updated version of the slide with those simple changes made: Sure, the design still needs some work, but you can see how it already looks noticeably better with just a few tweaks. 2. Simplify Your Fonts With the library installed on your computer and the wealth of options you can download online, you, like most designers, might want to try out different fonts. But even if you’re not restrained by company font guidelines, remember that simple is almost always better. Here are some simple guidelines to follow: Stick to one or two fonts. In general, it’s best to stick to just one or two fonts throughout your course and use them consistently. You’ll notice that the example above uses three different fonts, all of which have slightly different designs—making everything look a bit off, even to non-designers. Consider readability. Our example demonstrates why it’s so important to think about readability—all those fancy font details make the content hard to decipher. Stick with options that have simple, clear lines and minimal fussy flourishes. And if you’re not sure what to watch for, look up serif and sans serif font types for good examples. For more advice to guide your font choices, check out this article: 8 Questions to Ask When Choosing Fonts & Formatting Text. Let’s take a look at the example slide after we’ve applied that advice: See how it’s cleaner and easier to read? What an improvement! 3. Tone Down Visual Effects Visual effects are an area where less is often more. They’re not inherently bad—in fact, sometimes a drop shadow or gradient can improve contrast or give a design some energy. But it’s not always easy to know how to use visual effects well. Our example is a perfect demonstration of this. The effects seem tacky and dated, plus they all seem to be competing for your attention. The easiest option is to avoid these visual effects entirely. But another good choice is to use just one or two, and only with a very light hand. With that in mind, here’s one way to apply that advice to our example: In this case we’ve just kept it simple. All the glows, gradients, and shadows have been removed, making the design substantially less busy-looking. 4. Streamline Your Colors Color can do a lot to grab people’s attention, set a mood, and even make a design feel on-brand. But it’s also an area where simplicity and consistency are key to making it all work. Right now, our example uses numerous colors that are fine on their own but look chaotic when used together. By reducing the number of colors, we can quickly make this design feel more harmonious. A helpful technique for this is to create a color palette—a small number of colors that all look flattering together and are used consistently throughout a design. This article on five ways to choose color palettes for e-learning shares practical approaches for choosing the right colors for your project. Let’s preview what our example might look like if we simplified the color palette a little: See what a difference that makes? Also, if you look closely you’ll notice that I added a subtle blue tint to the background as well to pull everything together and create more contrast with the on-screen text. 5. Trim the Text Another change that can make a huge impact on your course aesthetics doesn’t initially seem connected to visuals at all: cut down your copy. By stripping out unnecessary details, you can buy yourself a ton of extra room for increasing font sizes or adding space between design elements. Not only that, but simplifying your copy also reduces cognitive load, making it easier for people to learn. Here’s what our example looks like after applying this tip: As you can see, by taking out the repeated ideas and words, we were able to shorten the text significantly while still conveying the same message. And while it wasn’t a required cut, swapping out the “NEXT” on the Next button for an arrow shows how images or icons can help a slide look less text-heavy. 6. Fine-tune the Slide Layout Now that we’ve created more space, we can use it to rework our sizing and layout. This can include doing things like: Increase the font size. Since our example’s course description was drastically cut down, there’s now space to enlarge the font and make it easier to read. Adjust the size of content boxes. Since there’s less text, it makes sense to pare down the size of the white rectangles and Next button to fit the content better. Align slide objects. When design elements are placed haphazardly on the slide, everything looks sloppy and unpolished. But lining things up with each other—like the edges of the white rectangles—instantly improves things. And what’s great is the alignment guides and on-screen grids in apps make lining everything up and putting consistent space between items so much easier than it used to be. Haven’t used grids to improve a layout before? This article shares how they can help improve your e-learning designs. All this layout fine-tuning helps things look visually organized. It also establishes consistent white space—the empty space between design elements. That white space creates visual breaks in your design, keeping things from looking cluttered and even potentially reducing cognitive load. Here’s our example again with more consistent spacing and alignment. It’s amazing just how much tidier everything looks now. Want an even better look at the new alignment? Here’s that same screen with the main alignment lines and margins highlighted in blue. As you can see, with just a few guidelines the layout becomes substantially more polished. Summary And there you have it! With just a few simple tweaks, you can update the design of an older e-learning course so it feels more current. The fixes in this article take minimal time and next-to-no graphic design experience to follow, but it’s incredible what a difference they can make. To wrap things up, let’s revisit where we started and just how far these six steps got us: Before After It’s like night and day, isn’t it? And it only took a couple minutes. Want to learn even more about the design techniques covered in this process? Take a deeper dive with these links: Your Ultimate Guide to Choosing Graphics for E-Learning How to Choose Backgrounds for E-Learning 5 Important Elements of Typography Improve Your E-Learning Designs Using White Space Follow us on Twitter and come back to E-Learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning. If you have any additional design tips you use to spruce up old e-learning courses, be sure to share them in the comments.
