If you are a course creator, you may have noticed that images help make your online tutorials more engaging. Just like the traditional teaching method, your students need proper images to visualise what is being taught.
Why course creators need engaging images
As an online course creator, you need how to create engaging images for your elearning courses. These images help to spice up your content. However, you must get to create these images after you must have created the course. The images of your course usually come after the structure, content texts, and formatting. When it comes to creating elaborate illustrations for your online courses, you need to use the right tools. This is because it can be difficult to create images to flow with your content. But, your eLearning courses need well-designed images to help consolidate comprehension among the students. Images are a massive boost for eLearning students. This is why online course creators need to maintain a repertoire of applications and tools used for creating images. You can choose to design your illustrations from scratch or use stock images. This guide shows you how to create the most engaging images for your online course.
The importance of images to eLearning students
Seasoned content creators who pay keen attention to their analytics know the importance of engaging images. These are a wide range of illustrations used to enhance engagement and boost the learner’s experience. Images are important to your online courses in the following ways:
- Images help learners visualise and retain information.
- A well-designed image can be used to easily explain a difficult concept rather than using multiple paragraphs.
- Learners use content images as a point of reference for their lessons.
- It is also important to note that images help enhance the visual appeal of your online course content.
- Images are used as a mental break to allow students to pause and digest important concepts and theories. Writers use images to break up long bodies of text. This way, a long paragraph can seem small and comprehensible.
Key considerations to note when using images for your eLearning courses
To maximize the impact of your eLearning images, you need to consider the following:
- Choose your style: Each online course should have a set of unique and similar images. This is how you shape your brand and maintain authenticity. A homogeneous image pattern helps your learners to focus and trust your ability to help them learn something new.
- Consider the audience: Before you set out to create the images, you should think about your audience. Some images are ideal for certain courses and tutorials. Your audience should be able to relate to and approve of the image you use. For instance, the image style and quality of a student’s online course should be markedly different from that of post-work online training.
- Your resources for images: Many course creators know how to use certain image-creator tools and applications. However, since not all course creators are professional graphic designers, there has to be a way for those without such skills. You can also access free images from several websites that offer free stock images.
- The image should enhance the content: Images in your content are supposed to enhance engagement. They tend to have the wrong effects when used incorrectly. While they are supposed to engage the learners, they can easily be a source of distraction and confusion. This means that you should only add the image if it strengthens the message and boosts the content.
- Quality over quantity: When it comes to choosing images for your online courses, quality is better than quantity. Many course creators usually wonder how many images they need to add to their online courses. While as many as possible is preferable, the rule of thumb is to use fewer quality images. You need to only add fewer images with great quality to enhance the engagement of your online courses. You should also refrain from packing your content full of mediocre images.
- Mix-up image formats: Depending on the nature of your online course, it is usually best when you mix up your images. You create more engagement with your students when you use a selection of banners, graphics, charts, and more for the courses. Using a mix of different image styles will enhance comprehension among your students and stick in their memories.
- Use detailed images: For courses that are considered complicated, you may want to choose detailed images. These are photos that are used to illustrate the primary points of your content. Using detailed images, you can easily explain difficult or complex subjects with fewer words. This way, you can enhance students’ comprehension while improving retention.
- Use relevant images: You may want to use relevant images within your content. Images should illustrate a relevant point within the content or enhance its aesthetic appeal. Whatever image you choose, it is important to maintain the course subject when choosing your eLearning graphics. There are numerous sources where you can get royalty-free images for your course(s). If you can’t find the right graphics, you should consider creating one yourself.
Course image thumbnails
Apart from creating in-content images, the course image thumbnail is also another important image for your eLearning courses. This is what persuades a student to sign up for the course in the first place. So, they are just as important as what you have inside the courses. A thumbnail is a branded icon that makes it easy for students to recognize your course(s). Before you go on to create the images for your eLearning program, you need to create this course image thumbnails first. Because they are responsible for helping you to sell the course to customers.
Building an image toolkit for your eLearning courses
If you want to excel at creating online courses, you need to know how to design elaborate images. To easily accomplish this, you need to have a toolkit full of image resources. Since there are numerous resources for creating eLearning images, it is best to discover what works for you and enhance the engagement of your online courses.