The e-learning industry has grown by leaps and bounds. It’s because people have started understanding the importance of learning unconventionally.

The e-learning companies are also coming up with avant-garde content to ensure that the businesses can take care of their employees. But some problems can impair the functioning of a company’s LMS. The LMS has a lot of eLearning templates available, but sometimes they become outdated; hence it’s the job of the business to contact the vendor to modify the template. An LMS template is just like a PowerPoint slide, in which the users can plug in the content. It’s also crucial that before you decide to buy an LMS software, you have a complete idea about its eLearning template library. Sometimes, the eLearning templates might not have an option for you to add videos and audio, which are essential for your course.

Hence, it does not make sense for you to get that LMS. The LMS must also have an option for the course creators to auto-translate because they need external help to add subtitles to a course without it.

These are the essential points that no designer team can ignore while designing a template:

• Make sure learners get the instructor’s feedback

The LMS must have the option of feedback. This means that it must have an option for you to add the email ID of the instructor or even a chat box option. When the learners don’t get timely help, they are likely to divert from a course. Therefore, the learners must also be given help in the form of access to the social media handles of the instructors or the company so that they can get in touch with their peers who are a part of the official Facebook group. The learners feel motivated to continue with a course when their queries are answered on time. Also, the LMS eLearning templates must have options for the LMS admins to track the usage rates of the module, like when does a learner quits, i.e., he presses the “close” button.

• Get the opinion of the team on the template

The team feedback is also crucial when getting an LMS template.

For example, the LMS template must be approved after getting approval from the team. Then, the graphic designers can design a style guide as to where the text and images should be placed in a template. If the template does not have the proper placement of the objects, it would be unusable in the future, causing an unnecessary expense on your part in getting a template redesigned. This style guide can include the tone of the template, like how many images would be placed on a slide.

An elearning template must also have a scope for notes, just like in PowerPoint slides, so that the SME team can include some important points if they are missed.

You might not use all the placeholders in a template like for notes etc., but they need to be there because the design can’t be altered to add more of them if needed.

• Appropriate navigation

The eLearning template must also be navigable, and hence there should be placeholders for buttons/icons. You can also include captions to describe what belongs where.

Navigation is a crucial part of the elearning template. The template must have a placeholder for hyperlinks so that the users can be directed to the last/next slide or the main page. When the template does not have easily visible hyperlinks, the learners get confused, and their time is wasted finding the hyperlinks to go further in the course or backward. It is also necessary that on every elearning template, the place for menu/icons/buttons should be fixed and decided beforehand so that any significant modifications are not needed later.

• Have proper bullet lists placeholders

The elearning templates have to be designed because every slide can’t have a different layout. You can’t expect the learners to lose their attention during a course. When you have a consistent layout throughout the course, thanks to the e-learning template, you have better brand visibility which ensures that the learners assimilate the eLearning content quickly.

Any template must have unavoidable elements like bullet lists and short text placeholders. Without such elements, the e-learning content is not coherent and articulate. When learners browse through long text blocks, they feel frustrated and suffer from cognitive overload. They might not retain much even after the course, and therefore short text blocks are essential to encourage retention.

Before embarking on a template design job, the design team must take some ideas from the end-users. They could be given surveys and assessments to gauge their response. Through such surveys, the design team knows what kind of layout is preferred in terms of positioning images and text. The target audience might not like any deviation from this layout.

When the organization does have an eLearning template, it makes sure that the employees get a feeling of cohesion. This is necessary because the employees don’t enjoy the e-learning experience when every slide has a different design.

• Arrange a menu before the course

The e-learning content designers must also make sure that a menu is integrated at the beginning of the course. This menu lets them know whether the e-learning course is sufficient for them, or they also need external resources. So, before any module begins, a slide should be added as an introduction that briefly describes the contents. When the course is sorted with a menu and an e-learning introductory slide before every module, the learners can use the course for just-in-time information needs. They can quickly locate the information needed by them to solve their problem.

Hence, this is how an e-learning template should be designed.