What is the Importance of User Experience (UX) in Learner Engagement?

User experience plays vital role in learner engagement. After reading this post, you’ll have a better understanding of user experience (UX) and its influence of learner engagement.

Remember that time when you last saw a movie in 2D? Not really, right?

Because ever since the invention of 3D glasses, the whole experience has become so much better and more memorable. I mean, imagine watching Shang-Chi and The Legend of The Ten Rings in 3D, you get the picture right?

Not only do you enjoy watching the show but you also remember!

And it’s exactly how you want your users to feel when they take up your courses online.

I’m not asking you to start teaching courses in virtual reality (although, that could be fun!)

I’m talking about why EXPERIENCE matters so much when it comes to learner engagement and how it’s often overlooked in education. Especially when all the learning is happening online.

Getting enrollments for your online course or training program is one thing but, are the users interacting with the e-learning content too? Are they satisfied with the experience?

Do you get where I’m going with this?

Well, if not, then fret no more! Because in this article, we’re going to talk all about user experience and the reasons why it’s so important for learner engagement.

BONUS: We’ll also talk about how you can check the learners’ engagement and what to do after!

So, let’s begin!

What is User Experience and Learner Engagement?

In simple words, ‘User Experience’, often abbreviated as UX, consists of the overall experience of a person using a product or a service. In this case, your LMS and courses!

It’s about how the users FEEL and INTERACT when they’re, let’s say, taking up a course online.

Are they able to easily access the course material? Are the lessons in progression for a smooth experience? Is the learning content enough and loads up without delays? Do they feel stuck on a lesson or topic?

And more importantly, are they able to complete all the courses uninterrupted?

All these aspects come under the umbrella of User Experience!

Now, let’s talk about learner engagement!

Learner engagement broadly refers to a learner’s interaction and commitment to learning content. The time they spend on courses, quizzes, and assignments, the completion rates, and pending tasks all depend on their level of engagement.

Now that we have got an idea of both users’ experience and engagement, let’s understand how they’re correlated and the importance of UX.in learner engagement.

The influence of user experience on learner engagement

If the experience is not consistent, smooth, and memorable, how will they interact and engage with the course? And if there’s no engagement or interest, then how will they retain that information?

And if the learners cannot retain the information, then how will they complete their task and achieve their personal e-learning goals?

So, as you can see, user experience plays a very crucial role in driving a learner’s engagement. So having good UX is one of the most important aspects that an LMS owner or a course creator should keep in mind! 

And now to make it easy for you to remember the importance of user experience, here are the key benefits of having a top-notch user experience:

Makes it easier for learners to navigate

When learners can easily find what they need to proceed with their course, they will eventually spend less time hunting for it in different places. For example – If your lessons, topics, and quizzes are in succession the learners know how to proceed and won’t spend time wondering about it.

The same goes with unattended tasks too. If a learner has some pending assignments which have been pending for quite a while, then through push notifications they can be easily reminded about them.

Additionally, including a link can simply take them to the respective module.

Thus, having a good UX can make things easier to navigate and interact with.

Keeps learners engaged and motivated

A better user experience puts your learners at the center stage. When you focus on creating quality courses, you’ll notice that they are more likely to draw value out of it. Prioritizing making the content more interactive, and fun will eventually lead to more engagement.

To drive more attention you can include interactive material like quizzes, discussion boards, tests, infographics, multimedia, etc. This will not only create a fun learning environment but will also spark a conversation with others.

Including real-life work problems and situations can challenge the learners to come up with a practical solution, thereby making the experience realistic!

Another cool thing that can contribute to motivating your learners is gamification. Rewarding learners with badges and certificates will not only encourage them to finish their current tasks but will push them to take on more.

In fact, a study by Finances Online states that 83% of employees who undergo gamified training are more motivated at work.

So, gamification features and interactive course material play a very important role in the UX and thus drive engagement!

Improves retention and completion rates

What is good content if it can’t be remembered? If anything, a good UX is a deciding factor for your users to return to your LMS as well as retain the information.

In most e-learning environments, a lot of times learners are required to revisit, revise and do extra work. A good and consistent UX can ensure that the learners find it easy to absorb the knowledge and perform better.

When learners can take in and remember what they’ve been taught, they are most likely to complete their assignments, quizzes, and courses in time.

Thus, having a good UX can drive up retention and completion rates while the lack of it can hamper the learning experience!

Learners feel satisfied and can drive up enrollments

When you focus on aspects like easy navigation, creating engaging content, reminders, etc. you

eventually end up creating a great user experience. And if the experience has everlasting effects, it means the users are satisfied.

And, what happens when you’re really satisfied with a product or service? You recommended it to others! 

Similarly, satisfied learners who are happy with the results can also recommend your courses to others. More recommendations mean more enrollments as well as a boost in credibility.

So, in short, UX results in more engagement, satisfaction, and recommendations!

But there is one more question that comes to mind.

How do you really CHECK learner engagement?

And that is what we’re going to cover next!

How to ensure learner engagement?

There are several ways to analyze and keep a track of how exactly your learners are behaving with the learning content, what are the learning trends, and what the progress looks like with the help of easy-to-understand graphs.

One way is to use a reporting plugin for your LMS. It will not only help you monitor the activities on the courses, figure out the drop-off points, and track the progress but also generate and share progress reports with the users.

The right reporting plugin can help you:

• Analyze the time taken to complete courses, quizzes, assignments, etc.
• Monitor the learning trends and points of drop-off
• Check learner-specific pass/fail rates for quizzes and tests 
• Track the total number of enrollments, courses and quizzes completed, assignments pending for individual learners, and more.

Using meaningful data and insights, you can decide actionables that can help you improve the course quality. For example, if a learner is spending a lot of time on one course or a topic, reports can give you an idea about where the learner feels stuck.

Recommended: Watch this short video to learn more about learner engagement and reports!

Based on these insights, you can figure out if the learner needs help with that specific course or module. When you are able to give your learners personal attention, it eventually gets accounted for and adds to their experience.

Read more: The importance of reports in online learning.

What are you waiting for?

The design of the course can help in attracting the learners, but the experience is what will make them stay.

And now that you understand the importance of a great UX and how it impacts learners’ engagement, it’s time for you to check the engagement levels on your LMS and act wherever possible!

At the end of the day, experience matters more than the result.

So, if you happen to use LearnDash as your LMS, you can grab the FREE copy of our reports plugin and give it a try!

And don’t forget to share your experience in the comments below!

That’s it from our side. Over to you!