E-Learning
Successful e-learning applications require much more than pretty pages with information on them. They need to be extremely easy to navigate, have clear instructions, and be compatible with all browsers, operating systems, and most mobile devices. The information must be presented in a way that is both engaging and motivating to learners, and the exams need to properly evaluate how well and how much the users learned, as well as the course itself. On top of that, the entire course and content management system (CMS) must be free of grammatical, spelling, or punctuation errors since no one is going to want to learn from a website that contains such things.
Proper validation of e-learning applications considers the courses and CMS from two perspectives. First, the course needs to have all of the necessary information related to the subject matter and meet the expectations (whether government or business) for providing certifications, continuing education (CE) credits, or other goals the application may have. Second, the course must be easily understood by even the most technically challenged, usable on the slowest connections, and draw the learner in so they will come back for more. Enrolling and paying for courses should have limited steps and clear instructions. Testing of e-learning goes beyond simple functional and usability tests and considers the characteristics of the learners themselves, the instructional design of the individual courses, the learnability of the course structure, and the engagement of the CMS itself.
