Quality online courses are well-organized and easy to navigate. Anyone who has ever switched from an iphone to an android or vice versa understands the necessity of designing a platform which provides a good user experience. That feeling you get when you are first learning a new phone, laptop, application, etc. is the same feeling your students encounter when first logging in to your online course. We want students engaging and grappling with the content of the course, not the course itself. To design a course which is intuitive to navigate and presents information in a logical and consistent manner consider the following:

• What do you want students to do the first time they log in to your course and how will you communicate this to them?
• How will you share important course documents such as the syllabus and course schedule?
• How will you organize the content of the course? By topic? Module? Week?
• How will you communicate to students how they should progress through the course? When should they do what and how?

Aesthetics and Navigation

• Be purposeful with your use of font
  • Use headings and subheadings
  • Use white space to break up large chunks of text
  • Use bold, italics, and underline sparingly to increase emphasis when it is used
  • Be consistent with font type, size, and color
  • Variation is good but be consistent with your variation
• All files, documents, hyperlinks, etc. should open in a new window
• When possible, upload pdf files instead of Word and/or PowerPoint files. All browsers have built in pdf readers making documents easier to open and read.
  • Word and PPT documents can be easily converted to pdf.
• Be purposeful and consistent with the organization of modules. Each module should have the same basic format and flow of information.
• Create hierarchies and outlines with course content when possible.
• Provide explicit directions in written narrative form and/or verbally through short videos whenever possible