How To Develop Mobile-Friendly LMS Platforms

Posted by Multi Programming Solutions on February 13th, 2024

Today’s busy and tech-savvy online customers are interested in mobile-friendly educational courses suitable for smartphones, tablets, and other gadgets. User-centric and accessible, gamified and bite-sized, mLearning can happen anytime, anywhere. You should learn how to implement it in the organization to make it a part of your corporate culture. This article will describe a mobile LMS, why it can benefit businesses, and what essential factors can help you deliver the best customer experience.

Mobile Learning for Boundless Education

Personal gadgets are now at the core of our lives, and teaching is no exception. Education technology and mobile learning revolutionize how trainees receive their knowledge, whether high school students or corporate employees. Providing simple and convenient access to bite-sized data through smartphones can boost engagement, improve retention, and contribute to overall better outcomes.

MLearning encourages ongoing education at the point of its need. It enables customers to access courses whenever and wherever suits them. Flexibility is one of the crucial elements of this method. The ability to choose a time and place to study lessons allows users to build their own pace, increasing satisfaction and improving the knowledge acquisition process.

Several vital characteristics make mobile learning technology effective for dispersed participants:

• It is often used to deliver micro-sized content. That is short 2-5 minute bursts of information represented in various formats like videos, tests, animation, gamified elements, or other interactive forms that simplify the process of receiving new knowledge and motivate readers to come back again.
• It also provides seamless access. Mobile learning software for businesses makes training even more accessible for users by removing the logging process or embedding materials directly into native apps.
• Supports communication and collaboration with other trainees. An ability to easily access live chats, forums, and newsfeeds for exchanging personal opinions and sharing valuable insights boosts customer engagement and strengthens social connections.

How mLearning benefits customers

More than 80% of the world’s customers use smartphones in their typical day. And around 57% move back and forth between several gadgets to get things done: shopping, paying bills, communicating with friends, or examining the latest mobile gaming trends. With such statistics, it makes sense that the fastest and easiest way to reach learners is by developing LMS platforms compatible with devices they mostly rely on. 

Research shows that 72% of respondents faced an increased engagement during the educational process compared to those who used non-mobile sources of information. 70% of participants felt more motivated to train on their smartphones than on a PC. And 43% of users reported about the increased productivity with mobile e-learning.

Focusing on in-person education requires more costs for businesses, including space renting, hiring a tutor, printing materials, and losing efficiency from time spent on classroom lessons. Switching to mobile resources reduces this spending, simultaneously ensuring higher completion rates and ROI.

LMSs that are compatible with personal devices encourage ongoing use. They simplify the process of repeating lessons for customers and help to retain information in the long term. Thus, training becomes embedded into corporate culture. Employees pick up, access, and complete courses with minimum complications, encouraging them to develop and gain value from the training continuously.

LMS mobile app integrations can ensure an improved learning experience as they become essential to the existing workflow. Employees can gradually acquire large quantities of materials divided into bite-sized chunks. They can pick up phones, complete a 2-3 minute daily lesson, and then get straight to the main work. Moreover, adding leaderboards, quizzes, and assessment tools makes the process more engaging and motivating for participants. That, in turn, is beneficial for business perspectives. MLearning in corporate training improves efficiency and boosts retention. According to the report, 94% of employees state they will be more likely to stay at the company if it invests in professional development and cares about their convenience.

How to succeed in developing a mobile LMS

We know how mLearning can be beneficial for corporate training. But let’s define how to get the most out of it. Here are some tips for creating a thrilling, mobile-friendly LMS:

• Make it easy to get started. The more straightforward the onboarding process, the higher the chances learners will come back again and again to continue courses. Give your users direct access to the materials, reducing the number of unnecessary frictions like repeatable log-in.
• Learn the difference between a mobile-friendly vs. mobile-first approach and choose what will suit your customers more. It may be necessary to shrink a desktop view to fit the gadget screen simply. But with a responsive page design, your platform will look good regardless of how it’s viewed.
• Add more video content. Users will be 95% more likely to retain video information as it’s visualized and is understandable to our brains.
• Apply game mechanics like reward points, virtual prizes, or badges. It will keep the learners interested and stimulate them to continue progressing.
• Use a conversational tone. The more informal and light-hearted content representation will create a friendly and cozy customer atmosphere.
• Encourage ongoing learning. The pleasure of mobile LMS lies in the ability to access lessons 24/7 at any suitable time. Send mild notifications to customers inviting them to continue their studies and redirect them to the relevant content.

Developing an LMS available on mobile devices is a rewarding practice but not the last task in creating an excellent customer experience. Let’s discover what else you should consider to succeed with your e-learning platform.

Enhancing User Experience through UI/UX Design

In today's digital landscape, user experience (UX) plays a vital role in the success of any software application, including mobile learning management systems for training. User interface (UI) design is at the heart of excellent UX. It should be visually appealing and intuitively understandable to provide seamless in-app interactions.

UX reflects overall customer convenience and satisfaction within the virtual educational environment. It goes beyond platform functionality and encompasses accessibility, usability, and emotional pleasure. A well-developed LMS’s UX leads to higher learner engagement, improved satisfaction, and overall performance. 

UI design lies at the core of creating an exceptional UX. It’s responsible for visually attractive interfaces, elements, and layouts of the mobile LMS software, which align with brand identity, reflect the central values and objectives, and bring positive emotions to users. To captivate effective UI/UX designs, creators should select suitable typography, color schemes, layouts, and imagery to resonate with customers. A deep understanding of user needs and expectations forms the basis for developing intuitive platforms tailored to the target audience.

For example, simple navigation and well-structured content improve the UX by allowing trainees to find and use the required educational materials easily. Features like a drag-and-drop menu, tests, and animated elements ensure a more enjoyable and relaxing process. By carefully considering the emotional impact of the app, UI/UX designers empower stronger connections with learners, allowing brands to build trust and loyalty with users.

Main facts on accessibility in design

When planning mobile app services, you should consider such a vital concept as product accessibility for all learners. Creating a UX/UI design that can include everyone, regardless of their unique and specific needs, is a moral and legal imperative for all LMS owners. In the era of rapidly evolving Edtech, all customers should get an equivalent user experience regardless of the service they encounter. Firstly, that means modern mobile LMS platforms should consider special conditions for people with such types of disabilities:

• weak vision, blindness, or color-distinguishing anomalies;
• deafness or partial hearing loss;
• congenital, situational, or temporary motor dysfunctions;
• learning/cognitive limitations, like dyslexia;
• seizures (especially photosensitive epilepsy).

Secondly, accessibility features designed for mobile app LMS customers with disabilities may help others. For instance, video captions for hearing users benefit learners who watch educational courses on mute. As another example, high-contrast content for consumers with visual disabilities can also be helpful for those who access online lessons under the bright daylight on the go. 

So, in general, accessible design standards focus on more than just customers with disabilities but make an app friendly for all users. The developers' task is to apply Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) for texts, images, sounds, markup, and other platform elements, making it compatible with all browsers and gadgets.

For your convenience, we share the main principles of WCAG, which will help you to organize mobile learning in education:

• Time. Consumers should have enough time to get familiar with the content. This concept can be applied to quizzes or curriculum schedules.
• Clarity. Designers should use adequate contrast (or make it adjustable) to avoid data illegibility.
• Keyboard usage. All the features in your mobile learning platform should also be available from the keyboards. Add “hot keys” or allow customers to access the menu and navigate across the app with this input device.
• Adaptable content. Represent information in your educational courses differently without losing its sense and structure.
• Seizure safety. Avoid designing content with animated effects that can harm learners with photosensitive epilepsy.
• Predictable interface. Make all the operations users can do within your mobile learning management system intuitively understandable. Avoid pages that appear and operate incorrectly.
• Text, video, and audio alternatives. Allow customers to convert imaginary, video, and audio content into other formats suitable for their perception and further usage. Provide closed captions or sound descriptions for time-synced videos.
• Compatibility. You should make an LMS mobile app available across devices that support assistive technologies (communication boards, speech-generating tools, symbol-making software, etc.)
• Readable data. Prepare both visually and cognitively understandable content.

Although accessibility is pivotal for building the best mobile learning management system for business, many companies overlook it. And this ignorance can lead to adverse outcomes for the brand. Thus, in 2017, Nike was sued for the lack of website availability for low-vision customers. Their pages didn’t support screen reading software that translates the written content into audio. So, an accident could destroy the reputation of a well-known brand. 

Nowadays, many jurisdictions provide penalties if business owners fail to create accessible designs for their websites. For example, web inclusiveness is controlled by Section 508 and The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 in the USA, The European Accessibility Act (EAA), the Equality Act of 2010 in the UK, and many others.

One more reason you should invest in a mobile LMS with an inclusive design is the risk of ignoring the needs of millions of customers. According to the World Health Organization report, around 16% of the global population (1.6 billion people) experience significant disabilities. With this in mind, an inclusive UX/UI design should become a moral standard supporting diversity and creating equal opportunities for every internet user.

Accessibility as one of the mobile learning trends makes sense on more than a legal and moral level. It benefits businesses in several ways. Google recognizes inclusive websites as usable and SEO-friendly. They are highly appreciated and can give your platform a better search engine ranking. As a result, your LMS will reach a broader target audience and can bring more revenue...