From the course: Elearning Tips

How to conduct user acceptance testing of your elearning course

From the course: Elearning Tips

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How to conduct user acceptance testing of your elearning course

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- When you launch your completed elearning course, it's very likely you'll get feedback from your learners that you'll wish you had gotten beforehand. And while this can be frustrating, an easy way to avoid this is by letting some, not all, of your learners test your elearning course before you launch it to everyone else. And this is where user acceptance testing can help, which is simply gathering a small group of folks from your target audience and having them test your course. So here are a few tips that you can use to help conduct user acceptance testing of your elearning course. First, make sure to gather a diverse mix of testers. While you may have a particular target audience for your elearning course, there's likely to be a lot of diversity within that population. And so you should make sure you're testing your course with a group of folks that accurately reflects your audience. This means having a mix of ages, genders, ethnicities, or really anything else that captures the diversity of your learners. Second, don't explain how to use your course or justify your design decisions. When you're watching your testers take your elearning course you're bound to see some folks who get stuck or aren't sure what to do. In these situations, you'll be very tempted to help them by saying things like, "Oh, you're supposed to click here," or, you know, "I designed it to do this." And the truth is, if your testers get stuck or aren't sure how to use your course, that's a sign there's something wrong with the design of your course that you need to fix. Third, debrief and ask questions. Remember, user acceptance testing is about getting feedback from your learners. After your testers have finished testing your course, take some time to get their reactions. Was the course easy to use? Did they get stuck? If so, how? Was the content valuable? What could be changed to make it a better experience? These are all questions that can help you improve your elearning course. So the next time you're about to launch an elearning course, consider user acceptance testing to get the feedback you need to make your course that much better.

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