Creating beautifully designed eLearning quickly.

Imagine this: You’ve got a tight deadline to roll out an engaging eLearning course, and your creative design ideas for content seem to have dried up. The clock is ticking, and you find yourself amid an instructional design drought.  

Most of us have faced a situation like this. At times, revisiting past projects and templates or discussing with peers helps. However, that can be limiting and may not always provide fresh ideas.  

Many modern-day authoring tools have readymade slide templates that can be used in such situations. However, these templates may not necessarily suit our requirements for a particular content type. For example, most templates prioritize static content presentation. While visually appealing, they often lack the interactivity that keeps learners engaged. The templates have generic imagery and graphics that may not work for every topic.  

I recently got a chance to try my hands on the new Adobe Captivate. I was curious about the real content QSPs and wanted to explore their suitability to my requirements. I must say that I am impressed with their versatility. 

What is a QSP? 

Quick Start Project or QSP is a collection of real content slides on a particular topic, that can be used as a complete project with some rearrangement as per the instructional flow. The slides in a QSP can also be used individually. These pre-built slides offer a variety of layouts, interactions, animations, and themes that can be customized to suit your content. This ensures that you always have a starting point and don’t have to stare at a blank canvas before every new project. 

What is special about the new Adobe Captivate’s QSPs? 

The new Adobe Captivate’s QSPs come with some power-packed features that are extremely useful for all the rapid eLearning development needs.  

• Beautiful Visual Design: 

The visual feel of the course influences the learning experience irrespective of the content quality. You may have the best content, but if it isn’t presented aesthetically, it may lead to learner disconnect. However, to achieve a stunning course design one may need a specialized visual designer to work on the course. It may also lead to extended timelines.  

 Adobe Captivate’s QSPs nail this issue quite effectively. These unique QSPs come with a perfect blend of modern and professional designs. The thoughtful combination of color schemes, layouts, and interactivities ensures a beautiful visual appeal to the course. 

 So, you can now focus on the instructional flow of the content without having to worry about the visual design of the course. 

• Real Content:  

Deciding the flow and form that is suitable for a particular content can be challenging. Just having predesigned templates with lorem ipsum text may not ease the development effort. It is important to know the suitability of the design for the content type.  

The QSPs help you to decide just that. They have real content with instructional and visual design thoughts in line with the course topic and its learning objectives. These instructionally sound QSP slides can be used as they are.  You can even use the content on the selected QSP slides to complement and enhance your content. 

• Responsive Design:  

Many times, predesigned templates do not flow properly across all devices as they are designed for a particular screen size. A template may be suitable for a desktop but may not display well on a mobile. In that case, you will have to customize them as per devices adding to the development effort.  

 However, the new Adobe Captivate is an auto-responsive tool. Thus, the QSPs are responsive as well. While using QSPs you don’t have to worry about the way the content will flow to different devices. That will be taken care of by the tool itself saving you a lot of development effort and time.  

• Range of Topics: 

The QSPs in Adobe Captivate have a range of options for topics and sub-topics across industries. Right from Marketing to Compliance there are many options to explore. Each QSP consists of around 40-45 real content slides with interactivities suitable to the topic.  

 You may also compare and select the slides from different QSPs. Thus, combining different QSP slides gives you an added choice. 

For example, you may compare the “Learning Objectives” slide from different QSPs and select accordingly. Such pre-built slide options are available for various interactivities, assessments, and so on.  

• Ease of Customization: 

All the components of the slide in Adobe Captivate are arranged as blocks, one after another. This makes customizing the slides of the QSPs very simple. As the layouts and designs are already set, replacing the specific text or media component is a matter of a click. One can also fine-tune the font sizes for different screen sizes as needed. 

• Periodic New Addition: 

Though the predesigned templates come in handy, it can become monotonous to use the same templates repeatedly. There is a constant need for fresh ideas and innovative layouts. 

 Adobe Captivate introduces new QSP topics periodically thus making the range of in-built QSPs quite comprehensive. 

Currently, the tool has 16 QSP slides on various topics across industries.  

Out of these 16 QSPs, 3 QSPs are “Featured Projects” that can be used without the need for rearranging the slides as per the correct instructional flow. 

How do we use the QSPs efficiently? 

With these well-designed real content QSPs, developing the course is now easier. Let’s discuss a few techniques to help you effectively utilize these QSPs. 

• Identify a QSP with a similar content type: Each QSP is unique and is designed to complement its topic and industry. Using a QSP with a similar slide type will help you to structure your courses quickly. You can repurpose or use the content in the QSP as is to enhance your course further.  
• Compare different templates to derive design ideas: While designing courses, you can look at the design for a particular content type across QSPs. E.g.: While designing the “Learning Objectives” slide, you can compare how it has been showcased within different QSPs and select the most suitable one.  
• Mix and match different QSPs to create your own QSP: Before starting the development, you can combine different QSP slides to create your own QSP. It will help you to design your courses better. 

In Conclusion 

Adobe Captivate’s QSPs offer a powerful solution for rapid eLearning development.  

They are useful in saving time, boosting creativity, and creating visually stunning courses.