When is the last time you did a little quality and assurance (QA) check on your virtual training course(s)?
Having an effective virtual training is not as simple as creating it and never touching it again! (Sure, it would be nice to not have to touch it again). But there are some elements that need to be evaluated and possibly updated every so often.
In this fast-paced world, it’s essential to make sure your content and presentation is fresh, up-to-date, and on-trend within your industry. Not only that, but you should do everything you can to make sure the presentation itself is engaging, pleasing to the eye, and that it works for your learners!
Run a QA check on these areas first
Technology
A no brainer! Make sure the e-learning authoring tools you are using run smoothly and offer an intuitive, smooth user experience. If there’s a functionality issue, you may not know about it before it’s become an all-too-common experience for your learners … leading them to question your content or brand. You worked hard to plan and curate your course, so you want the technology to really showcase that!
Audience
If you’re developing a new course, ask yourself: Are there people who actually want to take my course? This sounds like an obvious question, but you’d be surprised at how many trainers haven’t taken a quick survey of what their learners’ needs really are before developing the content. Before you launch a course that misses the mark, testing allows you to confirm that there are learners who want to spend their money on your valuable content. As you share your planned content with potential learners, grab their contact information to ensure you’ll have an audience as soon as the course launches.
Content
The learning objectives you implemented when you developed your course may or may not still be relevant. Do the objectives still fall in line with what your learners need or what is industry current? Maybe your larger goals have changed, so the material may not be relevant today. Or it is possible that you need to retrofit the material that was designed for a large audience to be more applicable for a much smaller audience.
A Quick QA Virtual Learning Checklist
- Do a dry run of your whole presentation before making any edits or changes. Does it flow? Were there any glaring issues? Does it encourage audience participation?
- After assuring the content flows smoothly and that your audio aligns with the visual experience, break out the presentation into shorter parts to do a surface level check. This includes proofreading, checking fonts and visuals, audio, videos, and loading times.
- Dig deeper into curriculum and course activities by applying feedback from prior learner surveys, assuring a clean instructional design, testing user experience/navigation, and assuring content is relevant.
- Conduct dry runs on various web browsers to test functionality and experience.
- Get a fresh set of eyes on it. You’ve been way too close to the content for days on end, so it’s easy to miss things! Choose testers outside of your organization so they can have an objective perspective on the course visuals/content/experience.
- Keep an ongoing list of errors to stay organized and track if they are due to technology, Wi-Fi issues, etc.
- Take your time! Don’t rush through the QA check. You’ve put in so much thought and time into the course content, so your presentation should reflect that.
Want to discover ways to create effective, participant-centered virtual training that engages learners right from the start? Sign up for Bob Pike Group’s Interactive Virtual Trainer Workshop today!
