Let’s play a (e-learning) game! Digitalizing the learning process.
“Got any games on your phone? 👾 That’s a frequently asked question by children who seek entertainment while adults, you know… are busy with adulting.”
Games got popular among young children, teens, and adults. How many times did you find yourself at the metro station, playing Candy Crush to pass the time? Probably more times than you would like to admit.
But could gaming concepts be used in something so fundamental as learning? With their addictive and fun approach, researchers found that elements from games can be used to optimise the learning process.
“Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think” — Albert Einstein
Let’s make it digital!
Of course, it’s 2020, and we want to make everything digital. Digital this, digital that. But could this actually have a positive impact, perhaps help us achieve our goals with minimum effort? Whaa 🤯
Lately, professionals in education and cognitive sciences focused their efforts to explore new ways of how we can potentially have better results from learning — the digital way.
The digitalization of the learning process has many benefits among all sorts of age groups, starting from fun word association games for young ones, to the full in-app simulators for university students. The revolutionary techniques used to build these services make the best use of our psychological triggers to simplify the process while maximizing results.
Let’s go over a hidden gem that found its way from the gaming industry into many other areas like business, education, e-commerce, and so on.
Gamification.
“Gamification [ɡeɪmɪfɪˈkeɪʃ(ə)n, noun] The application of typical elements of game playing (e.g. point scoring, competition with others, rules of play) to other areas of activity, typically as an online marketing technique to encourage engagement with a product or service.”
Yes, but why should gamification be considered when developing a digital product?
“Gamification is exciting because it promises to make the hard stuff in life fun” — Lexico.com
It is no surprise that ever since we were children, we discovered the world through games, curiosity, and excitement. While everything was easier as children, we must not neglect the fact that our minds still use these mechanisms to observe and understand the world.
What does gamification have to do with it, and why should we consider it when building a product?
Simple. Motivation is key! 🔑
Simplifying cognitive efforts through seamless game-like activities could seriously impact how we learn new things. You see, apps like Duolingo, Khan Academy, StoryBall, and online self-learning platforms like Udemy use gamification concepts to enhance user learning experience compared to traditional learning methods.
Some examples would be:
- Leaderboards: gives a rough estimate of the user effort, compared to friends/colleagues, encouraging positive competition.
- Reward point system: tracks progress and time spent in the app while giving users motivation to be inspired by already made progress.
- Streak system: helps with user retention.
- Accessibility: often, learning resources may be expensive or not handy. Having a full-on lecture or quiz, just one tap away, makes learning more accessible and exciting.
- Mind-mapping and learning paths: predefined structural information given to the user according to its existing knowledge.
- Storytelling: building a narrative makes associations seem much easier.
Digitalization is trendy.
Digitalization doesn’t only target smaller age groups but find its popularity within university students as well. With the development of 3D simulator software like Oxford Medical Simulation, AR/VR experiences such as SimX and AI help students and professors enhance the learning process.
For example, such tools are beneficial for medical students who have the opportunity to see 3D anatomy parts and have digestible information attached to each body part.
Flashcard apps are also great for preparing students for future evaluations.
The importance of UI/UX in learning digitalization
UX/UI plays an important role in designing the best experience.
Some important aspects of being mindful about when designing learning apps:
- Ease the cognitive load 🧠 : KISS — keep it simple, silly. Break down content in a digestible manner so users have an easy time focusing and remembering.
- UX copywriting and Storytelling 📚 : We tend to remember stories : it’s a fact.
- Colorful and straightforward UI 🎨 : Visual memory plays an important role on how we distinguish information. But keep it minimal! We still want the star of the show to be the content itself!
- Positive reinforcement 👍 : learning is hard. Starting a new thing is hard. Positively reinforce users when they make mistakes and show them the right paths. Associate positive emotions with the task of learning, and you will have them coming back for more.
While some aspects cannot be digitalized, such as the human interaction aspect, we clearly can’t deny some of the benefits digitalization brings to the table. What do you think? Are you a fan of traditional teaching methods, full digital preacher, or do you prefer a combination of the two?
