Challenge

The University System of Georgia established eCore as a collaborative program designed to make core curriculum courses more accessible to first- and second-year undergraduate students enrolled at public institutions across the state of Georgia. On a mission to help students fulfill their undergraduate coursework requirements through e-learning, eCore recognized that their online courses just needed more—a more aesthetically pleasing appearance and more interactivity in order for students to better engage and to keep them focused throughout their online learning experience.

Process

In collaboration with instructional designers, multimedia designers, and subject matter experts, our team hit the ground running with a goal of fully transforming eCore online courses into something much more pleasant to look at and a much more enjoyable experience for students to endure. Our instructional designers blazed a trail for the rest of our team with a project plan that involved extensive planning, creating, and reiterating all while allowing each of our team members to fully own their area of expertise. For me, this meant working closely with the instructional designers to design and develop a user interface for online courses based on proven instructional design principles all while ensuring that user experience remained at the forefront of the design. When needed, I would also work along side the subject matter experts to craft rich, multimedia experiences for e-learning, such as infographics and instructional videos, that could be integrated within these eCore online courses.

Solution

Traditionally, online courses have been recognized as being very text-heavy and monochromatic. A crucial factor driving the user interface design was our mission to truly help dissociate eCore online courses with this more traditional way of thinking about e-learning—boring and bland. To accomplish this, I made use of vivid colors and bold imagery in conjunction with interactive components to really spice things up. At the end of the day, our primary objectives were to help users fully submerse themselves within their online learning environment and to change the way eCore students think and feel about e-learning. It's safe to say, mission accomplished.

Demos

• Master Template
• Getting Started: Template Guide
• Getting Started: Easy Generators
• Getting Started: HTML Quick Reference