Satisfaction does not come easy. L&D professionals are driven to provide more creative ways to enhance learning and development opportunities in 2020 to fulfill the missing gap between professionals and learners. What can be done to maximize the potentials and process of the L&D journey?
Music streaming platforms are on the rise. Enjoying music has now become a unique audio-visual experience, with a variety of user interfaces to choose from, such as Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, SoundCloud, TIDAL and Pandora, just a few to name.
Sweden’s music streaming service Spotify, transformed the global music scene when it launched in 2008, and since then listening to music has never been the same. Musicians and users are able to discover and share their music to the world with a one of a kind experience.
Spotify presents a user experience like no other music streaming platform. Features such as access for non-premium users, improved sound quality, on demand line of access for music and personalized playlists based on algorithms are a few to name. With such user experience, Spotify has become the largest driver of music revenue across 79 markets with 286M users and 130M subscribers.
But what makes this platform different to other music streaming platforms?
Well. Design, layout, features and of course, the whole experience.
Design-wise, Spotify redesigned their concept to create a dark layout with a dominant black to create a theater-like experience. Just like when you enter a theater, the light dims, and all eyes are on the screen. The movie becomes an experience.
Spotify wants users to feel a similar way when using their platform. With a darker color scheme, cover arts, navigation buttons and text become more contrast with an aesthetic touch. All eyes are on the screen and the features become that movie.
But what does Spotify have to do with learning & development?
You name it. User experience.
Importance of User Experience in 2020
User experience is vital for services to connect with their users, as it is for learning and development professionals to communicate with their learners.
For Spotify’s case, engaging through the features allow users to navigate their experience while choosing what users want to listen to.
This is similar in learning and development. Learners can enhance user experience by using several approaches to achieve engagement from what is presented by L&D professionals.
With the rise of technology in 2020, virtual classrooms, eLearning, computer-based communication, augmented reality have become part of this learning experience. By engaging user experience in learning, this will help boost engagement and retention.
At the same time, with a user experience approach, L&D professionals are able to offer content effectively, create a new and interesting touch for users, and present an authentic side to the learning experience.
To engage well, L&D professionals can focus on an attractive presentation or design with the main goal of delivering effective learning. Also making sure how the content is presented and organized, creates a significant outcome. A simpler navigation will be appealing for Millennials and Gen X-ers.
Besides that, professionals need to keep an eye on accessibility. Is the content accessible on different devices? Is it accessible outside the corporate environment? Does it need specific connections, such as intranet or VPNs?
In 2020 clear objectives, access, engagement and simplicity marks a good user experience for learners. Combined with a suitable design, these key points can support a better learning and development experience.
User Experience in Corporate L&D
Corporate learning & development is playing an essential role in the 2020’s business development. A proper training strategy directly impacts work engagement and supports corporate retention.
A good user experience highlights and supports many aspects of corporate learning such as learning content, structures, preferences, frameworks, agendas, and learner’s satisfaction. These standards and benchmarks determine how effective the experience really is.
A proper example of an optimized user experience in corporate learning is microlearning. This approach delivers the content to employees with a high level of engagement, by enabling learners to absorb what they need and still receive the content as a whole.
Making the most out of user experience in corporate learning can include other approaches such as gamification. This is what language learning platform Duolingo applies to its followers and users.
Hmm, what is gamification?
It is a process of creating and engaging experience in a non game environment.
From a UX perspective, Gamification improves productivity, engagement, retention and management. It’s a fun way to ease the tension in a complicated process.
Through Duolingo, users can learn new languages and this can get stressful at certain levels. Through this gamification experience, learners are able to feel a bit at ease with such features. One to mention, a leaderboard or score board. Learners can rate their own satisfaction with their reach and improvement. This can also display how far the learner has gone during the process.
With a gamification approach in the learning and development experience, this gives a fun touch for the learners, enhancing their user experience.
Meanwhile, to measure other forms of success, learners can collect points, badges, stickers and fulfill challenges. Sounds a tad more fun, right?
Onwards: What to Expect
Learning and development will aim to support a more user-friendly approach to cater Millennials and younger generations which dominate the workforce. According to PwC’s 14th Annual Global SEO Survey, the millennial generation already shape 24% of the workforce in the United States and this year will form 50% of the global workforce.
The role of technology will make its way in providing accessible platforms, management systems and tools to enhance the learning experience, personally and also as groups.
With broad access to learning tools, both learners and professionals can expand their horizon of learning, gaining access to unlimited learning content.
L&D professionals can utilize many features such as social media, platforms and management systems to provide a more effective approach. Virtual classrooms, augmented reality and artificial intelligence will also have their own portion in the process.
But to keep in mind, one of the biggest challenges in enhancing user experience is maintaining an L&D process that engages with learners, with a system that is accessible and manageable.
User experience will be displayed in many forms, either from the User Interface (UI), layout, content or outcome. These key points would work better if provided with an authentic approach from the L&D professionals to have a more well-related outcome for learners.
But at the end of the day, enhancing user experience in the learning and development process should have a positive and beneficial impact on both learners and professionals to create a healthy and engaging L&D environment.
Just like clicking your favorite song on Spotify and singing to the lyrics from your favorite musician while browsing through the playlists the algorithm has prepared personally for you.
A good user experience brings learners and professionals on the same page.
Image: © unsplash.com || UX Indonesia
