Reducing the Seat Time in Your eLearning Courses

The modern workforce likes multi-tasking. They cannot focus on a particular thing for a long time. If you want your learning to catch their attention, then make sure that you give them whatever information they need quickly. Do not make them wait or search for it. This applies to training content, too. If you offer them lengthy, verbose learning, you can be sure that they will skip it midway and decrease your return-on-investment for the training.

Here are some pointers that may indicate that your course is too long.

The easiest way to gauge is to ask for direct feedback. Employees are honest with their feedback. If you receive more negative feedback than positive ones, you know that you need to rehash the course and reduce the seat time. You may even want to keep it anonymous for better response.
Metrics can tell you a lot about how well your learners are connecting with your eLearning content. They can give you an idea about whether you need to break down the learning into bite-sized chunks or keep it as-is. A good indicator is the time your learners engaged with the course before logging off.
The drop-off rate is another indicator. There are several reasons why the drop-off numbers rise, the length of the course is one of them. If you make the training mandatory, employees may not be able to drop out, but they will definitely take longer to complete the course or have low participation scores.
Monitor the training lulls. Your learners may complete the training but take a long time to reach the end. If they take several weeks to complete an hour worth of training, then maybe they were busy at work or needed more sittings to digest information.

Tips to reduce the seat time of your elearning course

#1: Keep the text concise.

The information presented in your course should be as brief as possible. Your text should be conversational and flow smoothly. Minimize the wordiness but make sure the meaning is not altered. Take out the useless modifiers that lengthen the sentences unnecessarily. Sharp, punchy sentences work way better than the longer ones. However, ensure that you do not sacrifice the clarity of the sentence while trying to keep it short.

#2: Use engaging games.

Games are a fun way to learn. Serious games help in honing learner skills. It improves the comprehension of a topic and speeds up learning. Add points and leaderboards and you have a winner at hand.

#3: Include rich multimedia.

Visuals can help simplify dull topics easily. Using multimedia elements like infographics, videos, and images reduces the wordiness of your course and make it attractive. It reduces the cognitive load to a huge extent. Visual representation of ideas helps learners to assimilate the information better.

#4: Include only need-to-know.

Your course should include information that you want your learners to know. Of course, that’s a no-brainer! But it isn’t so easy to decide what to keep and what to prune. Make sure the content is clear and accurate. The content should have a tangible impact on your employees’ performance. Avoid overexplaining any concept. If you think certain content can be found at other places on the net or otherwise, take it out from the course and include links in the resources section.

#5: Provide personal learning paths.

A personal learning path can help meet employee-specific needs. It offers them the chance to choose the topics that they think are relevant. This freedom to choose their learning keeps them invested in the course. They do not have to go through lengthy learning just to reach their topic of interest.

At Designing Digitally, Inc. our experts help prioritize and condense your content into ways that help your learners absorb it with ease. They do a thorough planning and need analysis before they come up with the relevant solution for your employees. We ensure that learning courses are just the right length for your workforce to remain engaged.

To get started on an innovative online learning solution for your team, request a free quote today!