Want to Increase Learner Adoption? Try These Strategies

• 3 min read

Find out why a great user experience drives better learner adoption.

What would you say is the biggest barrier to being completely satisfied with your organization’s learning technology? 

Recently, a poor user experience was rated one of the top reasons companies were unhappy with their learning platforms. 

This isn’t a new finding, though, but it is important when it comes to learner adoption. 

If your users can’t use the learning management system with low training or no training, either the software hasn’t done its job, its evaluators were too foolhardy in their assessments or both. 

Individual learners need to pick up a learning platform and run with it as if it was a normal, casual, web-based application they are already so used to adopting and using every day. 

Any cumbersome impediments to usage will become problematic both in terms of initial adoption and over time. You need something your learners don’t have to think about in order to use and this ultimately helps boost learner adoption. 

Too often, user adoption takes a back seat to all the other checkboxes we want to fill when we select an LMS, but now is the time to make it a priority, especially in response to how we interact with technology. 

Everything is Digital Now 

The digital transformation of organizations worldwide has enabled more access to learning tools and platforms and radically changed the way training is perceived by employees. Once “a pain point”, it has now become a necessity to guarantee employability. 

Modern learners are hungry for knowledge and want to take power over their learning paths and this is where it becomes essential to look at learning in a way that puts your learners, and their needs, first. 

Design Thinking and The User-Centric Approach to Learning 

When it comes to making a user’s experience, and therefore their adoption, easier and engaging, an effective approach is to incorporate the principles of Design Thinking. 

This is a framework for creating a solution by first developing a thorough understanding of the people or users for whom you’re designing products or services.

There are five phases in Design Thinking:

  1. Empathize – with your users
  2. Define – your users’ needs, their problem, and your insight
  3. Ideate – by challenging assumptions and creating ideas for innovative solutions
  4. Prototype – to start creating solutions
  5. Test – solutions

Putting your learners at the center of how you deliver your learning initiatives, enables you to create experiences which are much more likely to resonate and compel them to take action. What if you knew your learners’ preferred learning style and medium to serve them the most appropriate content?

For example, “Sarah” likes to listen to podcasts on her smartphone (with headphones) on her way to and from work every day, while “Andrew” would rather have Alexa (Bluetooth speakers) to listen to his favorite podcast while he’s milling about at home. 

Webinar: How Digital Transformation Enables a User-Centric Approach to L&D 

Understanding how your learners engage with learning technology and then crafting an experience that reflects this should be prioritized by L&D. Docebo is excited to partner with Speexx for a webinar that will outline what Design Thinking and user-centric learning actually means and how can you start implementing these concepts in your L&D strategy.Watch the webinar recording and learn how to effectively increase learner adoption.