How To Design Wildly Engaging Comic Book Style E-Learning Modules

When I decided to offer comic book style e-learning to my clients—and build off my wildly entertaining e-learning module, ‘Broken Co-worker’—I kept thinking:

“This style of ‘comic book e-learning’, although highly effective, needs to be cost effective... faster... and scalable for organizations.”

You see, my provocative original was developed with video and used "actors". And yes, many people loved that about it.

But, in the real world, filming may not be an option. Especially with tight budgets and even tighter deadlines.

So, I reflected on the original experience and asked: How can I maintain the elements people love? And how can I make the design process super-efficient?...

I looked at pre-built tools and apps, but the results were lacking or disappointing.

And, as you probably know, you hit a plateau with stock images—in variety and consistent quality.

A Marvel-lous Discovery

My goal was simple: Try to make the experience better for me, and for my client too.

Having said that, can you guess what I discovered?

Illustration!

If you use an illustrator, your design options are virtually limitless.

You can envision, plan, and storyboard scenarios you need to demonstrate…

…Then, sit back, while an illustrator recreates your vision.

Now, let’s talk more about how this relates to context.

Illustrations can have a full range of emotion and actionable poses. Plus, they can meet any demographic, and also be placed in any situation.

See for yourself:

For my clients, the film version is very difficult to pull off in-house and impossible to scale.

The illustrated version… context maintained and much much more practical to develop...

Don’t Settle. Create The E-Learning You Want

Look, when it comes to designing e-learning, there are 3 things people seem to settle on:

1. Painful, fruitless searches in "content libraries" and stock photography sites. (Wasted time = wasted money.)
2. Plain ol’ repetitive boring slides or design compromise.
3. And, depending too much on the cold unimaginative templates.

The point is…with an illustrator, whatever you can imagine, you can create. The world is your oyster.

“If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.” - Steve Jobs

Do Better What Is Already Being Done

The benefits of bringing an illustrator onto your project can be enormous! This, you need to experience for yourself.

What I mean is that the turnaround from concept to launch can be very efficient with the proper workflow.

For example, if you design e-learning, having an illustrator simply hand you beautiful design assets (to drop into your authoring tool) is pure gold.

You're faster, have more flexibility and, in the end, you give your audience a much more robust experience... that oozes context and engagement.

Now, it’s not against the law to design e-learning with clichéd templates and stock images, but why would you want to?

Wanting more out of the experience just shows you're alive, because life is about expansion and wanting more from it.

This is why fulfilled workplace learning professionals—in both corporate and non-profit sectors—don't settle, open up new doors, and do new things...

Want to learn more?

Check out my case study HERE.

Until next time, stay curious,

-Ryan

Resources mentioned in this article:

1. Broken Co-worker -- Click here to experience the e-learning.