When working in the eLearning solutions we make a mistake of assuming what the use wants. The user is looking for something else and we offer something else.

Most of us come from the Internet industry and for us, naturally, the closest thing to eLearning is the Internet “This is also an interactive medium and we approach pretty much the same way a website would be handled.” This assumption may work, but only for a small percentage.

The average user is comparing eLearning to classroom teaching because has just come from a classroom and has sat in front of a computer.

While we are creating eLearning material we are classifying it in different section, we are standardizing it so that there is uniformity all across and this seems to be the most natural approach to us, but to a learner it is somewhat like being strapped in a straitjacket. He is the used to unstructured learning, a learning where everything didn't started with an objective and ended with a summary. In a classroom, he has the option of asking a question when he is in doubt. The entire learning in a classroom is structured much more loosely in a classroom scenario (if you don't like the word loosely, read it as differently).

Second thing is again a failure to see things from the perspective of the user. We are thinking about creating something that looks good and most of the time we get carried away and don't think about the usability and functionality of our creations.

The difference between the user and us is years of experience. We are spending all our time surrounded by eLearning material while a user may be having his first experience of eLearning when he sees something created by you. We know without, without even thinking about it, what to ignore, what to read, what is important, what is ornamental but a user does not. For him the entire screen is equally important and he has to figure out his way on that screen that carries important information plus lots of things which are there for either aesthetic purpose or because we “believe” how something should be done.

The clients tries to read between the lines and he tries to find meaning in everything and eventually is frustrated. A great amount of learning is required, not only for the subject taught, but also learning how to work with the eLearning product. The user looks at an image and thinks how is this related to what I am reading what image is it trying to convey while we put that image there because that was the most suitable image we had. He looks at animation that was there for merely ornamental purpose and think what is happening. The user is interested in the message, not in how attractively it is packaged.