Why discoverability is your competitive edge in an economic downturn. There’s no denying that these are tough economic times. But there are ways to stay afloat – and even competitive – in a recession by focusing on retaining and growing customers through your learning program.
First and foremost, take a good, hard look at how you’re attracting new learners. How are you packaging your learning, and how are you profiting off it?
Our recommendation for growth in a recession is to build a public content strategy. This means ensuring that your content is clear, usable, and discoverable. When your learning academy is discoverable (for both SEO and the overall user experience), it streamlines the process for your learners and keeps them engaged with relevant content for longer.
As a first step, take a look at our discoverability checklist to ensure your learning is checking all the boxes.
In a digital learning program, user experience (UX) is absolutely critical for keeping learners engaged. While great UX delights and streamlines the process of learning something new, poor UX causes frustration or abandonment of the experience altogether. The deeper you can pull in first-time learners, the more successful they’ll be with your learning program. When it comes to UX to make the learning experience both more consumable and more impactful, there are some key best practices to follow.
Keep learners interested and active in your learning program with this checklist!
Table of Contents
Avoid Extraneous Information
Remove text and visuals unrelated to the particular course a user is experiencing
Highlight and spotlight the most important information within each module
Avoid both text and narration in a video at the same time
Minimize Cognitive Load
- Keep relevant items together, including text and visuals of the same topic
- Split large concepts into smaller, digestible pieces
- Start with basic concepts before diving into complex details
Turn Up the Engagement Factor
- Use a conversational, clear tone in text and speech
- Narrate using a human voice, not a machine-generated one
- Use graphics and narration as often as possible
Optimize for Visibility & Consumption
- Add built-in learner notifications to finish or start a new course
- Offer new course recommendations after completion
- Align with your marketing team to maximize distribution or add a new reach channel
- Use strong calls-to-action (CTA) to encourage deeper navigation & exploration
Close the Feedback Loop
Embed channels for learners to provide feedback and ask questions. Consider:
- A chatbot that enables you to track search data
- Interactive FAQ pages on your academy
- Discussion boards within a customer community or elsewhere in the learning experience
- Customer feedback surveys delivered via email
Strategically Organize Your Content
Pick a type of information architecture that works best for your business and your learner personas. Keep in mind that making your Academy as scannable and browsable as possible is key. Choose from:
- Hierarchical: Make it immediately obvious which content is most important to the learner (using headers or bold visuals)
- Sequential: One action clearly follows another, and the learning experience follows a clear pathway
- Matrix: Users can choose for themselves how to filter or sort the content they’re browsing