Do you already know who is behind e-learning courses? Meet the role of the programmer: the one responsible for bringing courses to life.

In previous articles, we have discussed the roles played by Instructional Design, Graphic Design, and Quality, but we have not yet delved into what the Programming area is responsible for and how important its functions are in the creation of e-learning.

The programming process is the final step to be taken, and its objective should be to motivate the user, place them in the process, or indicate at which stage they are, what has been covered, and what is to come. In other words, it should provide the best learning experience.

To achieve this, the programmer relies on the interactive elements and animated effects of the software they have, and they also possess the most important ingredient: their imagination.

To accomplish the above, the most important key is to have a well-planned storyboard or script, as it is at that moment that the clear idea is presented: when the action (interactions) will be established before moving on to programming. For example, if there is a game or a series of challenges that need to be achieved to progress in the course, these instructions must be specified in the script for the programmer.

Particularly, when programming e-learningcourses, whether they are purely content-based or interactive games with few or many interactions, the programmer approaches it like programming a video game. When reviewing the script and developing scene by scene, they consider all possible interactions, variations, or paths that the user could take, especially if there are multiple-choice exercises, where they have to account for all possible combinations of correct and incorrect answers to ensure there are no flaws and thus deliver a complete and enjoyable user experience.

On the other hand, the interface must be intuitive, and the interactive elements easily detectable, for example, through a help button clearly displayed. Similarly, the key elements for advancing in the course should be clearly evident and recognizable. For this purpose, these elements need to have a light effect to visually guide the user to the part they need to click to continue.

Another key factor is organization. Many times, the programmer has had to correct or change part of the programming where, no matter how simple the change may be, a significant amount of time is invested, for example, searching for the element to be modified, as without proper naming conventions for elements or, worse yet, in the code used for programming, such as variables or triggers, or in the absence of named elements, something very simple can take many hours to correct until the desired outcome is achieved.

Lastly, and most importantly, after finishing the programming, the programmer reviews that all interactions function correctly. Let's imagine that we have a programmed course, and at a certain part of the topic, there is a button that leads to the next level, but it doesn't work. In this situation, the user will not be able to continue their learning. That's why it's not enough to only review the programming when working on that particular scene but it is very important to give a final review to the completed work as a whole, as if the programmers were the end users.

At this point, it is necessary to point out that the software used to create e-learning no solo va a ser un contenedor de la información que deben aprender los usuarios, sino que es un espacio de aprendizaje interactivo e integral. En otros términos, es un escenario en donde ellos van a acceder a un contenido, a actividades, y debe ser programado de una forma amigable, intuitiva, que cada parte esté bien animada y que sea interactiva.

La persona que ejecuta el curso es como un cineasta del aprendizaje, tiene la libertad de jugar con diferentes ángulos, con elementos visuales para enriquecer el material; es decir, tienen que tener presente que se está contando una historia, y que debe contarla de la mejor manera posible.

En conclusión, la labor de un programador es fundamental para darle vida y movimiento a cada proyecto de e-learning, ya sean infografías interactivas, multimedia, simuladores, videos motion graphic, ejercicios interactivos y juegos interactivos. En Captura, tenemos un gran número de programadores que están aquí para hacer que tus cursos sean atractivos y de calidad.