E-Learning Course Creation
Case Study
01
Project Overview
In 2015, many new authors with little background in storytelling or editing were writing books for the emerging online market. Added to that, the lack of information, or misinformation, on e-publishing and book marketing left many fledgling authors lost and unsure of the correct steps to publish a quality book. Blog posts or courses that were available were often generic by genre or specific to only one aspect (e.g. marketing).
I undertook the task of creating a one-stop-shop course on writing to publishing and beyond. During this creation, I learned Lean UX Design as well as tackled a lot of hurdles in video creation, script writing, and e-course website creation.
Problem Statement
New authors were lost in the steps to write a quality novel and authors new to the emerging e-book market were not sure how to self-publish and what was needed. Available blog posts and courses were confusing, contradictory, sometimes simply wrong, and often only covered one aspect, taking authors a lot of time to find all the information they needed.
The Goal
To create a course that would work for new and veteran authors that would teach the steps on how to write a quality book, edit it, how to self-publish, and then build an author platform.
The Team
This was a passion project of my own devising. I was lead on the course development from research through product launch and in charge of all aspects unless otherwise noted. I did take two courses on e-course development, had a mentor through one course, and two online support groups of other course creators to ask questions of.
My Role
I was the sole UX and graphic designer as well as the video writer and creator and built the e-learning course website in WordPress using an LMS theme.
02
User Research
While I could see a need for a writing-to-marketing course for authors to solve a pain point I heard about in a lot of forums and posts, I didn’t know how to create an e-course. I enrolled in the Courses Builder’s Laboratory to learn the steps on Learning Management Systems, which also provided a mentor.
Course Builder’s Laboratory follows a lean UX design theory where after initial research on an idea, the idea is sold before a product is created to validate the sales potential. To validate my inital idea, I undertook low-touch (survey) and high-touch (interview) user research.
Low-Touch User Research
Diving straight in, I researched high performing blog posts, author comments on social media, and reviews (books & courses) for pain language.
From these, I made an excel spreadsheet, organizing the comments by topic to see which areas had the most pain points. From there, I create a list of the reoccuring themes.
High-Touch User Research
Taking the results of the low-touch user research, I create a survey to get more specific feedback. I asked authors I knew to answer, posted about it on my blog, shared it on social media, and in groups I belonged to.
I picked five authors from those who said they would be willing to do a one-on-one interview, meeting with them to go even deeper into their writing process, where they had problems, where they were confused about self publishing, and what they felt they really needed to help them grow as a self published author.
I compiled the results into an affinity map to refine what areas authors felt then needed help, condensing the results into percentages of people who mention specific pain points.
%
Time Constraints
%
Finding Ideas
%
Staying Motivated
%
How to Plot
03
Minimum viable product
With the user research completed, I analyzed the results to highlight the most prevalent pain point to select a topic for a pilot course. Out of all the research, a user need that I could answer was selected: how to write a novel readers will love without taking months to do it.
From that, I developed a one page course outline to describe what would be covered in the course, how many sessions it would take, and what the final results would be for students. With that, I could validate if the course was viable by trying to sell it before creating more.
Lean UX
To determine if users were willing to buy my solution to their problem, I sold slots in a course, using cold traffic via direct marketing online.
I reached out to potential students with a script that outlined the course idea with a cost based on market research of similar classes. If a potential student was interested, I discussed the course with them further either via email or a one-on-one call and shared the sign-up page to enroll.
Create a Minimum Viable Product
Happily, I sold enough spots on the pilot course to make it worthwhile to run it. I decided to launch the pilot course in November 2015.
Each week, I created the slides and taught the course live to students on the weekend, recording each session to share it with them as well as for my own use later.
Pilot Course Concept
Course Goal: Write a great fantasy novel in four months.
User Exit Survey
When I wrapped up the pilot course, I gave each student a survy on the topics were covered to see what goals were met, what they needed more information on, and what else we could have covered.
%
Relevancy of Week 1 (Synopsis Outline)
%
Wished We'd Covered (Dialogue)
%
Most Helpful Topic (Outlining)
%
Biggest Problem with Format (Set Time)
04
Iteration
Under the Course Builder’s Laboratory course, the next step was to take the recorded video and turn it into a full course to sell. However, based on the user feedback, I felt the course needed further improvements. Plus, the Course Builder’s Laboratory didn’t go into how to build an LMS website, branding, or marketing.
To make up for what I felt was missing, I enrolled in a second course on building e-Learning courses called Create Awesome Online Courses. This one followed a more traditional UX design process.
Following the steps in the new course, I reanalyzed all user research, including the additional exit survey. From this, I was able to develop user personas for a future course.
Personas
From all of the user research, I developed two author personas who would be interested in a course. Based on the majority of feedback I received and my area of expertise, I also decided to niche down the course to focus on fantasy authors, which showed in the personas.
Sarah
Sarah has written one or two fantasy novels, but has not finished a series. She feels like the books she has written are “flat” and not as interesting to readers as they could be. She is also uncertain if she’s chosen the correct platform for self-publishing and is lost on how to market and gain a following.
“My books have gained a small following, but reviews aren’t great. Maybe I haven’t found the right platform… or maybe the books could just be better?”
Tom
Tom is a novice author, who has begun a novel and feels lost in the plotting, world building, and character development. He is unsure if self-publishing is the correct path, what other choices are available to become an author, how to safely share his unpublished work, and what to expect if he decides to self publish.
“I think I have a great story idea, but I just don’t know how to put it into a book. After I get it written… I’m just totally lost.”
Full Course Development
With personas created, I worked on developing the full course to solve their pain points, using what I learned in the pilot course and through the user feedback.
Course Layout
Course Goal: One-stop course on how to write, publish, and market a fantasy novel to waiting fans.
How the Course Answers User Needs
Which modules solve each profile user’s problems.
05
UI Design
With the course outlined, I moved into the UI design and branding. I was already familiar with WordPress and so purchased an LMS theme that would make building the course easier. It had very limited customization, so there was little need to develop wireframes of the screens or course architecture.
Brand Guide
I’d spoken to authors earlier about what colors resonated with them for fantasy. I picked a color palatte for the website and developing the course slides developed from this prior research.
Slides and Font
I purchased a slide deck that had writerly elements, such as the crumbled paper background. I customized graphic elements to fit the color brand. The slide deck used the modern san-serif font Menlo, which I kept and carried through the downloads and swipe files I created for the course.
Name and Logo
With the fonts and colors selected, it was time to pick out the name and create a logo. As I was designing this course to be a one-stop course, I picked the name the Ultimate Fantasy Writer’s Guide. I kept the logo fairly simple in the brand colors.
Teaser Design & Launch
A world building freebie was created and launched before the course was completely developed. It began an email sequence designed to address fantasy author pain points. While this sequence built an audience and created trust, course videos were recorded and edited.
Website Design
Even in 2015, there were many options for where to build an online course from Udemy to other LMS platforms that would handle the marketing, payments, etc. Wanting to retain full creative control, I built the course website using WordPress with an LMS (learning management system) ready theme. I purchased plug-ins for protecting course content, managing student enrollment, and tracking progress.
The LMS theme had limited options for customization and navigation, which kept creating the course pages fairly straight forward. Videos were hosted on Vimeo. I made audio and PDF outlines to increase accessibility.
Once the course was completely assembled, I created the registration and sales pages using the LMS theme templates.
With all the pieces in place, I sandbox tested the registraion, payment system, and redirects to the dashboard as well as the welcome email automation and sales funnel sequences.
06
Course Launch
The VIP course launch began in April 2016 with an open enrollment period of two weeks. Mailing list members were delivered a designed set of emails to build excitement, including a free Starter Kit series built to answer the biggest pain points users had expressed during user research.
The email sequence ended with an open cart phase, answering questions and showing details on the course. Happily, no glitches occurred in sales and registration with the initial rollout. 🥳
Free Starter Kit
Post Launch Research
After the two week open enrollment, the course was closed for six months. During this time, feedback was collected from students and any discovered issues were fixed. Non-purchasers were also questioned on why they didn’t buy.
Why Not Buy?
%
Not the Right Time
%
Too Expensive
%
Too Busy
%
Don't Need a Course
Second Launch
With issues corrected and the email automation leading into the course open enrollment tweaked, the course opened for the second time six months after the VIP launch with new bonus material and a larger list—as the freebie download had remained active during the closed enrollment time period.
Results
Since the initial pilot course and the creation of the full course…
Affiliates
Launches
Students
More Courses Launched
07
Lessons Learned
I went into this process with the hunch e-courses would become big over the next few years. I knew some aspects of website building, but not much about LMS/e-learning systems or the plug-ins required to protect content behind a pay screen ,and had never sandbox tested before.
The two courses were essential in guiding me through the process, each having strengths and weaknesses. Though I managed the process on my own with questions asked in the course chats and from my mentor, I realized that this process was a huge amount of work. Having a second (or more!) set of eyes and support would have made it a lot less of a mountainous challenge! After this first course, I did partner with another author and love sharing everything from research to brainstorming to building a launch with someone else.
But, I did do it! And, what do you know, e-courses have become a big thing. 😄