Designing Quality Online Courses: Research and Application of the UXDL Framework

Students like a mixture of media types. I find it important to note that not all students like video. The presenters said that if you are going to use video as the only way to communicate something there should be a good reason for it – and you need to tell students that is what you are doing.

They like check marks and xs that are green or red.

Signaling

The presenters talked about the importance of signaling. Signaling is something we do in-person naturally through nonverbal cues like pointing. In online settings, it may be as similar as pointing to what you are talking about or highlighting key information.

Consistent formatting, or icons can help to break up content and point to key information online. Keep the number of icons to around four (unless they are intuitive).

Positive Affect

Creating positive affect. The object needs to be easy to use, function well, and make you think. Good visual design is not just decorative – it makes you think deeper.

Developing content like this requires a lot of resources. Using it to develop interest is a strategy for managing the resource needs.

Storyboarding

Thinking through how to present information and in what order is important for clearly communicating ideas. It takes a lot of cognitive effort to design learning objects well.

Flexibility

If you are using synchronous options in an online space the reason needs to be clearly communicated to reduce resentment and improve buy-in.

Students liked frequent low-stakes assessments. It is important that the assessments are valuable and aligned with other parts of the course (like larger assessments).

Humanizing Learning

The single most predictive factor in student success is making the experience feel humanized. They need a sense of connection.

Transferability

I see some parallels between this research and the research I am doing. Just like the UDL framework suggests, not every learner likes any one way of learning.