Quality Assurance (QA) plays an essential role in every e-learning program, whether you’re operating solo or collaborating with a larger L&D team. At DevLearn 2024, I had the pleasure of chatting with several folks in the Articulate Experience Room about this. We discussed not only the software capabilities but also how to ensure the courses they create are high quality, and that everyone on their team is on the same page when it comes to best practices and expectations.
We first addressed this question in 2016, and since then, we’ve often been asked to share an example of Yukon Learning’s QA checklist. However, because every organization’s norms, cultures, and expectations differ, it’s more important to consider what should be included in a checklist when creating or modifying one to fit your team’s unique needs.
So, let’s explore this further as we answer this “as heard in training” question: “What should I include in my e-learning QA checklist?”
Types of Checklists
Here at Yukon Learning, we have numerous QA documents, mostly categorized by the type of course we’re developing. These checklists range from simple one-page guides to multi-page processes, depending on their purpose, such as:
- full project draft cycles
- translation best practices
- accessibility considerations
- screen recording guidelines
For this post, we’ll focus on a general checklist, which we refer to simply as our Developer Checklist. This includes everything our developers check for before submitting a course to our Quality Team for an internal review (prior to a customer review).
Note: Depending on how many review cycles your team typically undergoes, your checklist may include sections and features specific to that draft cycle. Examples include prototype, first draft, final draft, and implementation.
Keep in mind that if you develop courses using different authoring tools, such as Articulate Storyline 360 and Rise 360, you may need separate lists due to each tool’s unique features.
Now, let’s consider which details we should focus on once we’re ready to generate this checklist.
Components of the Checklist
If you’re starting from scratch, determining what should be included in your list can feel overwhelming. Our Developer Checklist primarily focuses on Storyline 360 development and has been curated over time to include the most commonly overlooked issues, as well as best practices developed through years of experience and, perhaps, a little trial and error.
Pro Tip: Think of your QA checklist as an ever-evolving resource. Make sure to audit it regularly and refer to the software’s version history (such as Storyline 360 Version History or Rise 360 Version History) to determine if any new features could enhance your current best practices.
We’ve organized our checklist by development cycles, and each cycle can be categorized into four main components:
- Instructional design
- Visual design
- Functionality
- Miscellaneous considerations
Let’s explore these one by one.
Instructional Design
From a development standpoint, this section is mainly about ensuring the developer has remained consistent with the content provided by the instructional design (ID) team, assuming the course content has gone through that process.
Yukon’s ID team has its own processes and best practices, so for the purposes of this part of the checklist, the developer is more concerned with whether the finalized content is presented correctly than with writing or editing it.
This includes things like:
- Spelling and grammar: Were any typos accidentally created when we brought the content to Storyline 360?
- Language: Is the onscreen text presented with a consistent voice and verb tense?
- Organization: Are the scenes/slides organized as indicated in the script?
Visual Design
Visual design is like the cover of a book. You know how people say ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’? Well, in e-learning, they kind of do!
If the visuals look messy or unprofessional, learners might think the whole course is that way. So, keeping visuals consistent and high quality is super important for a good e-learning experience.
Here are a few design considerations to keep in mind:
- Transitions: Do all slides contain transitions? Are they applied consistently?
- Animations: Do all timed objects contain entrance and exit animations? Are animations applied consistently and with purpose? Are animations timed properly, resulting in the intended effect?
- States: Do buttons contain all the necessary states? Are they visually consistent, especially regarding color and text formatting?
- Imagery: Are images appropriate for the intended audience? Are they of high-quality, and do they maintain that quality across different devices and screen resolutions? Are they visually consistent in terms of filters, contrast, theme, and mood?
- Text formatting: Are the fonts types and font sizes being used consistently with Text Styles? Is there appropriate and consistent Paragraph Formatting in regards to line spacing, alignment, and margins?
Functionality
Functionality describes how the course behaves and what actions the learner can perform within it. If your e-learning project were a car, visual design is comparable to a car’s exterior – such as the paint color.
Conversely, functionality is all about “what’s under the hood” driving performance. Because Storyline 360 is such a robust tool, numerous features can impact performance.
Here are a few key Storyline 360 functional elements you may want to consider in your QA checklist:
- Player: Is the Menu customized as intended? Are all the Resources attached? Have the requested Player Features been added (or removed)? Have the navigation restriction features (menu and seekbar) been properly set?
- Navigation: Do the Previous/Next buttons navigate to the intended slides? Does branching function as designed? Have the interactions been restricted, if applicable?
- Slide/Layer properties: Are all the Slide Properties and Layer Properties set to result in the planned behavior?
- Interactivity/Triggers: Do all the interactions function as designed? Are there any conflicting triggers? Have all unnecessary/duplicate triggers been removed?
- Quizzing/Results: Do all quiz questions have the correct choices properly identified in Form View? Does the feedback display (or not display) as intended? Does the Results Slide scoring calculate properly? Do the Results Slide Features function and display as intended?
Miscellaneous
Other considerations may fall into the miscellaneous category, especially those that are related to a distinct customer, organization, or project. This could include customer requests (such as brand standards, specific functionality, or formatting needs), as well as your organization’s unique requirements (like best practices, naming conventions, and publishing standards).
What about accessibility? Good question! Although you can include accessibility considerations in any of the categories we mentioned, it’s such a broad and complex topic that it often needs its own special checklist. If you’re interested in this topic, feel free to check out our earlier blog post on How to Create an E-Learning Accessibility Checklist!
Summary
Creating a QA checklist should rarely be approached with a “one size fits all” mentality. It’s a good idea to draw inspiration from multiple resources (like this blog post or Articulate’s Your Handy E-Learning Course Review Checklist) and tailor one to your customers’ or organization’s specific needs.
What are your strategies for maintaining high quality and consistency in your e-learning projects? Feel free to leave a comment or contact us to share your approach!
Extend Your Learning With These Resources!
To delve deeper into this topic, check out the following resources from Articulate and The Articulate Trainer blog:
How to Create an E-Learning Accessibility Checklist
Top Four Tips for E-Learning Quality Assurance (QA) Testing
Ultimate E-Learning Design and Development Checklist (Nicole Legault)
What Should I Include on My e-Learning Design and Development Checklist?
Your Handy E-Learning Course Review Checklist
Happy developing!
~ Raye
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