The hard part is putting your content online. Once your content is online, different challenges await you. Expect to revise your content at least once per year (ideally, right after you deliver it to your students). Expect to update for two things: new information and improved user experience. New information is expected in education, but once the content is published you discover a relatively new consideration for teachers – how can the content become easier to navigate and internalize?

 

Remembering UX is not about you, the updates to work flow are from the point of view of the learner, maybe the supporters at home. Most user experience is about helping the end user know what to do next. Here are some examples of how you could increase the end users seemingly intuitive journey through your online content:

Online Content: Narrow Choices

The key to the user feeling at easy to the knowledge of the choices available and how to select from those choices. Consider how your sequencing of content, the content layout, and the graphics (buttons, links) can help accomplish that. The fewer choices available at each point of the choice, the more sure your audience is of what to do. How can you narrow their choices? Two is ideal, three is okay, more than that and your offering creates uncertainty at all the choices.

Once your content is online, different challenges await you.

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Online Content: Predictable Patterns

Uncertainty is the enemy of learning. Create patterns in number of items, order of items, type of items your students and their families expect to find within your online content. Learners perform barely conscious prediction and checks with every click inside your content. They are comforted when the next piece of content revealed meets their expectation. And they are confounded when the content revealed does not meet their expectation; that takes the learner out of a ready to learn state.

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Online Content: Consistency

Within your predictable patterns consistency is required. Length of text (sentence, paragraph, and page) is important to sustain the pace of reading, scanning, and skimming available to your learner. Consistent lengths also help learners estimate pacing to complete readings. Assessments and projects should also be similar in time required on task.

It is hard to publish your content online; that content is only starting the journey of revision at that point. Expect ongoing revisions as your work toward better delivery to your learners.